The Project Gutenberg EBook of Verner's Pride, by Mrs. Henry Wood

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Title: Verner's Pride

Author: Mrs. Henry Wood

Release Date: April 15, 2005 [EBook #15627]

Language: English

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VERNER'S PRIDE

MRS. HENRY WOOD

ILLUSTRATED BY HAROLD PIFFARD

[Illustration]

LONDON & GLASGOW
COLLINS' CLEAR-TYPE PRESS




CONTENTS.


         CHAP.                              PAGE
            I. RACHEL FROST      7

           II. THE WILLOW POND      19

          III. THE NEWS BROUGHT HOME      26

           IV. THE CROWD IN THE MOONLIGHT      32

            V. THE TALL GENTLEMAN IN THE LANE      36

           VI. DINAH ROY'S "GHOST"      47

          VII. THE REVELATION AT THE INQUEST      55

         VIII. ROBIN'S VOW      60

           IX. MR. VERNER'S ESTRANGEMENT      67

            X. LADY VERNER      72

           XI. LUCY TEMPEST      77

          XII. DR. WEST'S HOME      86

         XIII. A CONTEMPLATED VOYAGE      96

          XIV. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING      104

           XV. A TROUBLED MIND      106

          XVI. AN ALTERED WILL      114

         XVII. DISAPPEARED      118

        XVIII. PERPLEXITY      125

          XIX. THE REVELATION TO LADY VERNER      129

           XX. DRY WORK      136

          XXI. A WHISPERED SUSPICION      139

         XXII. PECKABY'S SHOP      145

        XXIII. DAYS AND NIGHTS OF PAIN      156

         XXIV. DANGEROUS COMPANIONSHIP      164

          XXV. HOME TRUTHS FOR LIONEL      168

         XXVI. THE PACKET IN THE SHIRT-DRAWER      175

        XXVII. DR. WEST'S SANCTUM      181

       XXVIII. MISS DEBORAH'S ASTONISHMENT      191

         XXIX. AN INTERCEPTED JOURNEY      196

          XXX. NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA      200

         XXXI. ROY EATING HUMBLE PIE      209

        XXXII. "IT'S APPLEPLEXY"      215

       XXXIII. JAN'S REMEDY FOR A COLD      218

        XXXIV. IMPROVEMENTS      225

         XXXV. BACK AGAIN      231

        XXXVI. A MOMENT OF DELIRIUM      237

       XXXVII. NEWS FOR LADY VERNER: AND FOR LUCY      248

      XXXVIII. THE MISSES WEST EN PAPILLOTES      254

        XXXIX. BROTHER JARRUM      258

           XL. A VISIT OF CEREMONY      268

          XLI. A SPECIAL VISION TOUCHING MRS. PECKABY      278

         XLII. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. TYNN      287

        XLIII. LIONEL'S PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS      298

         XLIV. FARMER BLOW'S WHITE-TAILED PONY      307

          XLV. STIFLED WITH DISHONOUR      312

         XLVI. SHADOWED-FORTH EMBARRASSMENT      318

        XLVII. THE YEW-TREE ON THE LAWN      328

       XLVIII. MR. DAN DUFF IN CONVULSIONS      336

         XLIX. "I SEE'D A DEAD MAN!"      338

            L. MR. AND MRS. VERNER        349

           LI. COMMOTION IN DEERHAM      353

          LII. MATTHEW FROST'S NIGHT ENCOUNTER      360

         LIII. MASTER CHEESE'S FRIGHT--OTHER FRIGHTS      370

          LIV. MRS. DUFF'S BILL      380

           LV. SELF WILL      390

          LVI. A LIFE HOVERING IN THE BALANCE       396

         LVII. A WALK IN THE RAIN       401

        LVIII. THE THUNDER-STORM      407

          LIX. A CASUAL MEETING ON THE RIVER      412

           LX. MISS DEB'S DISBELIEF      422

          LXI. MEETING THE NEWS      430

         LXII. TYNN PUMPED DRY      435

        LXIII. LOOKING OUT FOR THE WORST      443

         LXIV. ENDURANCE      449

          LXV. CAPTAIN CANNONBY      453

         LXVI. "DON'T THROTTLE ME, JAN!"      461

        LXVII. DRESSING UP FOR A GHOST      464

       LXVIII. A THREAT TO JAN      473

         LXIX. NO HOME      478

          LXX. TURNING OUT      485

         LXXI. UNPREMEDITATED WORDS       493

        LXXII. JAN'S SAVINGS      498

       LXXIII. A PROPOSAL      505

        LXXIV. TO NEW JERUSALEM ON A WHITE DONKEY      509

         LXXV. AN EXPLOSION OF SIBYLLA'S      519

        LXXVI. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL       526

       LXXVII. AN EVENING AT LADY VERNER'S      534

      LXXVIII. AN APPEAL TO JOHN MASSINGBIRD      540

        LXXIX. A SIN AND A SHAME       546

         LXXX. RECOLLECTIONS OF A NIGHT GONE BY      550

        LXXXI. A CRISIS IN SIBYLLA'S LIFE      558

       LXXXII. TRYING ON WREATHS      565

      LXXXIII. WELL-NIGH WEARIED OUT      573

       LXXXIV. GOING TO THE BALL       578

        LXXXV. DECIMA'S ROMANCE      586

       LXXXVI. WAS IT A SPECTRE?      592

      LXXXVII. THE LAMP BURNS OUT AT LAST       598

     LXXXVIII. ACHING HEARTS      606

       LXXXIX. MASTER CHEESE BLOWN UP       615

           XC. LIGHT THROWN ON OBSCURITY       625

          XCI. MEDICAL ATTENDANCE GRATIS       633

         XCII. AT LAST!      641

        XCIII. LADY VERNER'S "FEAR"      645

         XCIV. IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN JAN!       654

          XCV. SUNDRY ARRIVALS      659




CHAPTER I.

RACHEL FROST.


The slanting rays of the afternoon sun, drawing towards the horizon,
fell on a fair scene of country life; flickering through the young
foliage of the oak and lime trees, touching the budding hedges, resting
on the growing grass, all so lovely in their early green, and lighting
up with flashes of yellow fire the windows of the fine mansion, that,
rising on a gentle eminence, looked down on that fair scene as if it
were its master, and could boast the ownership of those broad lands, of
those gleaming trees.

Not that the house possessed much attraction for those whose taste
savoured of the antique. No time-worn turrets were there, or angular
gables, or crooked eaves, or mullioned Gothic casements, so chary of
glass that modern eyes can scarcely see in or out; neither was the
edifice constructed of gray stone, or of bricks gone black and green
with age. It was a handsome, well-built white mansion, giving the
promise of desirable rooms inside, whose chimneys did not smoke or their
windows rattle, and where there was sufficient space to turn in. The
lower windows opened on a gravelled terrace, which ran along the front
of the house, a flight of steps descending from it in its midst. Gently
sloping lawns extended from the terrace, on either side the steps and
the broad walks which branched from them; on which lawns shone gay
parterres of flowers already scenting the air, and giving promise of the
advancing summer. Beyond, were covered walks, affording a shelter from
the sultry noontide sun; shrubberies and labyrinths of many turnings and
windings, so suggestive of secret meetings, were secret meetings
desirable; groves of scented shrubs exhaling their perfume; cascades and
rippling fountains; mossy dells, concealing the sweet primrose, the
sweeter violet; and verdant, sunny spots open to the country round, to
the charming distant scenery. These open spots had their benches, where
you might sit and feast the eyes through the live-long summer day.

It was not summer yet--scarcely spring--and the sun, I say, was drawing
to its setting, lighting up the large clear panes of the windows as with
burnished gold. The house, the ornamental grounds, the estate around,
all belonged to Mr. Verner. It had come to him by bequest, not by
entailed inheritance. Busybodies were fond of saying that it never ought
to have been his; that, if the strict law of right and justice had been
observed, it would have gone to his elder brother; or, rather, to that
elder brother's son. Old Mr. Verner, the father of these two brothers,
had been a modest country gentleman, until one morning when he awoke to
the news that valuable mines had been discovered on his land. The mines
brought him in gold, and in his later years he purchased this estate,
pulled down the house that was upon it--a high, narrow, old thing,
looking like a crazy tower or a capacious belfry--and had erected this
one, calling it "Verner's Pride."

An appropriate name. For if ever poor human man was proud of a house he
has built, old Mr. Verner was proud of that--proud to folly. He laid out
money on it in plenty; he made the grounds belonging to it beautiful and
seductive as a fabled scene from fairyland; and he wound up by leaving
it to the younger of his two sons.

These two sons constituted all his family. The elder of them had gone
into the army early, and left for India; the younger had remained always
with his father, the helper of his money-making, the sharer of the
planning out and building of Verner's Pride, the joint resident there
after it was built. The elder son--Captain Verner then--paid one visit
only to England, during which visit he married, and took his wife out
with him when he went back. These long-continued separations, however
much we may feel inclined to gloss over the fact, do play strange havoc
with home affections, wearing them away inch by inch.

The years went on and on. Captain Verner became Colonel Sir Lionel
Verner, and a boy of his had been sent home in due course, and was at
Eton. Old Mr. Verner grew near to death. News went out to India that his
days were numbered, and Sir Lionel Verner was instructed to get leave of
absence, if possible, and start for home without a day's loss, if he
would see his father alive. "If possible," you observe, they put to the
request; for the Sikhs were at that time giving trouble in our Indian
possessions, and Colonel Verner was one of the experienced officers
least likely to be spared.

But there is a mandate that must be obeyed whenever it comes--grim,
imperative death. At the very hour when Mr. Verner was summoning his son
to his death-bed, at the precise time that military authority in India
would have said, if asked, that Colonel Sir Lionel Verner could _not_ be
spared, death had marked out that brave officer for his own especial
prey. He fell in one of the skirmishes that took place near Moultan, and
the two letters--one going to Europe with tidings of his death, the
other going to India with news of his father's illness--crossed each
other on the route.

"Steevy," said old Mr. Verner to his younger son, after giving a passing
lament to Sir Lionel, "I shall leave Verner's Pride to you."

"Ought it not to go to the lad at Eton, father?" was the reply of
Stephen Verner.

"What's the lad at Eton to me?" cried the old man. "I'd not have left it
away from Lionel, as he stood first, but it has always seemed to me that
you had the most right to it; that to leave it away from you savoured of
injustice. You were at its building, Steevy; it has been your home as
much as it has been mine; and I'll never turn you from it for a
stranger, let him be whose child he may. No, no! Verner's Pride shall be
yours. But, look you, Stephen! you have no children; bring up young
Lionel as your heir, and let it descend to him after you."

And that is how Stephen Verner had inherited Verner's Pride.
Neighbouring gossipers, ever fonder of laying down the law for other
people's business than of minding their own, protested against it among
themselves as a piece of injustice. Had they cause? Many very
just-minded persons would consider that Stephen Verner possessed more
fair claim to it than the boy at Eton.

I will tell you of one who did not consider so. And that was the widow
of Sir Lionel Verner. When she arrived from India with her other two
children, a son and daughter, she found old Mr. Verner dead, and Stephen
the inheritor. Deeply annoyed and disappointed, Lady Verner deemed that
a crying wrong had been perpetrated upon her and hers. But she had no
power to undo it.

Stephen Verner had strictly fulfilled his father's injunctions touching
young Lionel. He brought up the boy as his heir. During his educational
days at Eton and at college, Verner's Pride was his holiday home, and he
subsequently took up his permanent residence at it. Stephen Verner,
though long married, had no children. One daughter had been born to him
years ago, but had died at three or four years old. His wife had died a
very short while subsequent to the death of his father. He afterwards
married again, a widow lady of the name of Massingbird, who had two
nearly grown-up sons. She had brought her sons home with her to Verner's
Pride, and they had made it their home since.

Mr. Verner kept it no secret that his nephew Lionel was to be his heir;
and, as such, Lionel was universally regarded on the estate. "Always
provided that you merit it," Mr. Verner would say to Lionel in private;
and so he had said to him from the very first. "Be what you ought to
be--what I fondly believe my brother Lionel was: a man of goodness, of
honour, of Christian integrity; a _gentleman_ in the highest acceptation
of the term--and Verner's Pride shall undoubtedly be yours. But if I
find you forget your fair conduct, and forfeit the esteem of good men,
so surely will I leave it away from you."

And that is the introduction. And now we must go back to the golden
light of that spring evening.

Ascending the broad flight of steps and crossing the terrace, the house
door is entered. A spacious hall, paved with delicately-grained marble,
its windows mellowed by the soft tints of stained glass, whose pervading
hues are of rose and violet, gives entrance to reception rooms on either
side. Those on the right hand are mostly reserved for state occasions;
those on the left are dedicated to common use. All these rooms are just
now empty of living occupants, save one. That one is a small room on the
right, behind the two grand drawing-rooms, and it looks out on the side
of the house towards the south. It is called "Mr. Verner's study." And
there sits Mr. Verner himself in it, leaning back in his chair and
reading. A large fire burns in the grate, and he is close to it: he is
always chilly.

Ay, always chilly. For Mr. Verner's last illness--at least, what will in
all probability prove his last, his ending--has already laid hold of
him. One generation passes away after another. It seems but the other
day that a last illness seized upon his father, and now it is his turn:
but several years have elapsed since then. Mr. Verner is not sixty, and
he thinks that age is young for the disorder that has fastened on him.
It is no hurried disorder; he may live for years yet; but the end, when
it does come, will be tolerably sudden: and that he knows. It is water
on the chest. He is a little man with light eyes; very much like what
his father was before him: but not in the least like his late brother
Sir Lionel, who was a very fine and handsome man. He has a mild,
pleasing countenance: but there arises a slight scowl to his brow as he
turns hastily round at a noisy interruption.

Some one had burst into the room--forgetting, probably, that it was the
quiet room of an invalid. A tall, dark young man, with broad shoulders
and a somewhat peculiar stoop in them. His hair was black, his
complexion sallow; but his features were good. He might have been called
a handsome man, but for a strange, ugly mark upon his cheek. A very
strange-looking mark indeed, quite as large as a pigeon's egg, with what
looked like radii shooting from it on all sides. Some of the villagers,
talking familiarly among themselves, would call it a hedgehog, some
would call it a "porkypine"; but it resembled a star as much as
anything. That is, if you can imagine a black star. The mark was black
as jet; and his pale cheek, and the fact of his possessing no whiskers,
made it all the more conspicuous. He was born with the mark; and his
mother used to say--But that is of no consequence to us. It was
Frederick Massingbird, the present Mrs. Verner's younger son.

"Roy has come up, sir," said he, addressing Mr. Verner. "He says the
Dawsons have turned obstinate and won't go out. They have barricaded the
door, and protest that they'll stay, in spite of him. He wishes to know
if he shall use force."

"No," said Mr. Verner. "I don't like harsh measures, and I will not have
such attempted. Roy knows that."

"Well, sir, he waits your orders. He says there's half the village
collected round Dawson's door. The place is in a regular commotion."

Mr. Verner looked vexed. Of late years he had declined active management
on his estate; and, since he grew ill, he particularly disliked being
disturbed with details.

"Where's Lionel?" he asked in a peevish tone.

"I saw Lionel ride out an hour ago. I don't know where he is gone."

"Tell Roy to let the affair rest until to-morrow, when Lionel will see
about it. And, Frederick, I wish you would remember that a little noise
shakes me: try to come in more quietly. You burst in as if my nerves
were as strong as your own."

Mr. Verner turned to his fire again with an air of relief, glad to have
got rid of the trouble in some way, and Frederick Massingbird proceeded
to what was called the steward's room, where Roy waited. This Roy, a
hard-looking man with a face very much seamed with the smallpox, was
working bailiff to Mr. Verner. Until within a few years he had been but
a labourer on the estate. He was not liked among the poor tenants, and
was generally honoured with the appellation "Old Grips," or "Grip Roy."

"Roy," said Frederick Massingbird, "Mr. Verner says it is to be left
until to-morrow morning. Mr. Lionel will see about it then. He is out at
present."

"And let the mob have it all their own way for to-night?" returned Roy
angrily. "They be in a state of mutiny, they be; a-saying everything as
they can lay their tongues to."

"Let them say it," responded Frederick Massingbird. "Leave them alone,
and they'll disperse quietly enough. I shall not go in to Mr. Verner
again, Roy. I caught it now for disturbing him. You must let it rest
until you can see Mr. Lionel."

The bailiff went off, growling. He would have liked to receive
carte-blanche for dealing with the mob--as he was pleased to term
them--between whom and himself there was no love lost. As he was
crossing a paved yard at the back of the house, some one came hastily
out of the laundry in the detached premises to the side, and crossed his
path.

A very beautiful girl. Her features were delicate, her complexion was
fair as alabaster, and a bright colour mantled in her cheeks. But for
the modest cap upon her head, a stranger might have been puzzled to
guess at her condition in life. She looked gentle and refined as any
lady, and her manners and speech would not have destroyed the illusion.
She may be called a protégée of the house, as will be explained
presently; but she acted as maid to Mrs. Verner. The bright colour
deepened to a glowing one when she saw the bailiff.

He put out his hand and stopped her. "Well, Rachel, how are you?"

"Quite well, thank you," she answered, endeavouring to pass on. But he
would not suffer it.

"I say, I want to come to the bottom of this business between you and
Luke," he said, lowering his voice. "What's the rights of it?"

"Between me and Luke?" she repeated, turning upon the bailiff an eye
that had some scorn in it, and stopping now of her own accord. "There is
no business whatever between me and Luke. There never has been. What do
you mean?"

"Chut!" cried the bailiff. "Don't I know that he has followed your steps
everywhere like a shadder; that he has been ready to kiss the very
ground you trod on? And right mad I have been with him for it. You can't
deny that he has been after you, wanting you to be his wife."

"I do not wish to deny it," she replied. "You and the whole world are
quite welcome to know all that has passed between me and Luke. He asked
to be allowed to come here to see me--to 'court' me, he phrased
it--which I distinctly declined. Then he took to following me about. He
did not molest me, he was not rude--I do not wish to make it out worse
than it was--but it is not pleasant, Mr. Roy, to be followed whenever
you may take a walk. Especially by one you dislike."

"What is there to dislike in Luke?" demanded the bailiff.

"Perhaps I ought to have said by one you do not like," she resumed. "To
like Luke, in the way he wished, was impossible for me, and I told him
so from the first. When I found that he dodged my steps, I spoke to him
again, and threatened that I should acquaint Mr. Verner. I told him,
once for all, that I could not like him, that I never would have him;
and since then he has kept his distance. That is all that has ever
passed between me and Luke."

"Well, your hard-heartedness has done for him, Rachel Frost. It has
drove him away from his native home, and sent him, a exile, to rough it
in foreign lands. You may fix upon one as won't do for you and be your
slave as Luke would. He could have kept you well."

"I heard he had gone to London," she remarked.

"London!" returned the bailiff slightingly. "That's only the first halt
on the journey. And you have drove him to it!"

"I can't help it," she replied, turning to the house. "I had no natural
liking for him, and I could not force it. I don't believe he has gone
away for that trifling reason, Mr. Roy. If he has, he must be very
foolish."

"Yes, he is foolish," muttered the bailiff to himself, as he strode
away. "He's a idiot, that's what he is! and so be all men that loses
their wits a-sighing after a girl. Vain, deceitful, fickle creatures,
the girls be when they're young; but once let them get a hold on you,
your ring on their finger, and they turn into vixenish, snarling women!
Luke's a sight best off without her."

Rachel Frost proceeded indoors. The door of the steward's room stood
open, and she turned into it, fancying it was empty. Down on a chair sat
she, a marked change coming over her air and manner. Her bright colour
had faded, her hands hung down listless; and there was an expression on
her face of care, of perplexity. Suddenly she lifted her hands and
struck her temples, with a gesture that looked very like despair.

"What ails you, Rachel?"

The question came from Frederick Massingbird, who had been standing at
the window behind the high desk, unobserved by Rachel. Violently
startled, she sprang up from her seat, her face a glowing crimson,
muttering some disjointed words, to the effect that she did not know
anybody was there.

"What were you and Roy discussing so eagerly in the yard?" continued
Frederick Massingbird. But the words had scarcely escaped his lips, when
the housekeeper, Mrs. Tynn, entered the room. She had a mottled face and
mottled arms, her sleeves just now being turned up to the elbow.

"It was nothing particular, Mr. Frederick," replied Rachel.

"Roy is gone, is he not?" he continued to Rachel.

"Yes, sir."

"Rachel," interposed the housekeeper, "are those things not ready yet,
in the laundry?"

"Not quite. In a quarter of an hour, they say."

The housekeeper, with a word of impatience at the laundry's delay, went
out and crossed the yard towards it. Frederick Massingbird turned again
to Rachel.

"Roy seemed to be grumbling at you."

"He accused me of being the cause of his son's going away. He thinks I
ought to have noticed him."

Frederick Massingbird made no reply. He raised his finger and gently
rubbed it round and round the mark upon his cheek: a habit he had
acquired when a child, and they could not entirely break him of it. He
was seven-and-twenty years of age now, but he was sure to begin rubbing
that mark unconsciously, if in deep thought. Rachel resumed, her tone a
covert one, as if the subject on which she was about to speak might not
be breathed, even to the walls.

"Roy hinted that his son was going to foreign lands. I did not choose to
let him see that I knew anything, so remarked that I had heard he was
gone to London. 'London!' he answered; 'that was only the first
halting-place on the journey!'"

"Did he give any hint about John?"

"Not a word," replied Rachel. "He would not be likely to do that."

"No. Roy can keep counsel, whatever other virtues he may run short of.
Suppose you had joined your fortunes to sighing Luke's, Rachel, and gone
out with him to grow rich together?" added Frederick Massingbird, in a
tone which could be taken for either jest or earnest.

She evidently took it as the latter, and it appeared to call up an angry
spirit. She was vexed almost to tears. Frederick Massingbird detected
it.

"Silly Rachel!" he said, with a smile. "Do you suppose I should really
counsel your throwing yourself away upon Luke Roy?--Rachel," he
continued, as the housekeeper again made her appearance, "you must bring
up the things as soon as they are ready. My brother is waiting for
them."

"I'll bring them up, sir," replied Rachel.

Frederick Massingbird passed through the passages to the hall, and then
proceeded upstairs to the bedroom occupied by his brother. A
sufficiently spacious room for any ordinary purpose, but it did not look
half large enough now for the litter that was in it. Wardrobes and
drawers were standing open, their contents half out, half in; chairs,
tables, bed, were strewed; and boxes and portmanteaus were gaping open
on the floor. John Massingbird, the elder brother, was stowing away some
of this litter into the boxes; not all sixes and sevens, as it looked
lying there, but compactly and artistically. John Massingbird possessed
a ready hand at packing and arranging; and therefore he preferred doing
it himself to deputing it to others. He was one year older than his
brother, and there was a great likeness between them in figure and in
feature. Not in expression: in that, they were widely different. They
were about the same height, and there was the same stoop observable in
the shoulders; the features also were similar in cast, and sallow in
hue; the same the black eyes and hair. John had large whiskers,
otherwise the likeness would have been more striking; and his face was
not disfigured by the strange black mark. He was the better looking of
the two; his face wore an easy, good-natured, free expression; while
Frederick's was cold and reserved. Many people called John Massingbird a
handsome man. In character they were quite opposite. John was a
harum-scarum chap, up to every scrape; Fred was cautious and steady as
Old Time.

Seated in the only free chair in the room--free from litter--was a tall,
stout lady. But that she had so much crimson about her, she would have
borne a remarkable resemblance to those two young men, her sons. She
wore a silk dress, gold in one light, green in another, with broad
crimson stripes running across it; her cap was of white lace garnished
with crimson ribbons, and her cheeks and nose were crimson to match. As
if this were not enough, she wore crimson streamers at her wrists, and a
crimson bow on the front of her gown. Had you been outside, you might
have seen that the burnished gold on the window-panes had turned to
crimson, for the setting sun had changed its hue: but the panes could
not look more brightly, deeply crimson, than did Mrs. Verner. It seemed
as if you might light a match at her face. In that particular, there was
a contrast between her and the perfectly pale, sallow faces of her sons;
otherwise the resemblance was great.

"Fred," said Mrs. Verner, "I wish you would see what they are at with
the shirts and things. I sent Rachel after them, but she does not come
back, and then I sent Mary Tynn, and she does not come. Here's John as
impatient as he can be."

She spoke in a slow, somewhat indifferent tone, as if she did not care
to put herself out of the way about it. Indeed it was not Mrs. Verner's
custom to put herself out of the way for anything. She liked to eat,
drink, and sleep in undisturbed peace; and she generally did so.

"John's impatient because he wants to get it over," spoke up that
gentleman himself in a merry voice. "Fifty thousand things I have to do,
between now and to-morrow night. If they don't bring the clothes soon,
I shall close the boxes without them, and leave them a legacy for Fred."

"You have only yourself to thank, John," said his mother. "You never
gave the things out until after breakfast this morning, and then
required them to be done by the afternoon. Such nonsense, to say they
had grown yellow in the drawers! They'll be yellower by the time you get
there. It is just like you! driving off everything till the last moment.
You have known you were going for some days past."

John was stamping upon a box to get down the lid, and did not attend to
the reproach. "See if it will lock, Fred, will you?" said he.

Frederick Massingbird stooped and essayed to turn the key. And just then
Mrs. Tynn entered with a tray of clean linen, which she set down. Rachel
followed, having a contrivance in her hand, made of silk, for the
holding of needles, threads, and pins, all in one.

She looked positively beautiful as she held it out before Mrs. Verner.
The evening rays fell upon her exquisite face, with its soft, dark eyes
and its changing colour; they fell upon her silk dress, a relic of Mrs.
Verner's--but it had no crimson stripes across it; upon her lace collar,
upon the little edge of lace at her wrists. Nature had certainly
intended Rachel for a lady, with her graceful form, her charming
manners, and her delicate hands.

"Will this do, ma'am?" she inquired. "Is it the sort of thing you
meant?"

"Ay, that will do, Rachel," replied Mrs. Verner. "John, here's a huswife
for you!"

"A what?" asked John Massingbird, arresting his stamping.

"A needle-book to hold your needles and thread. Rachel has made it
nicely. Sha'n't you want a thimble?"

"Goodness knows," replied John. "That's it, Fred! that's it! Give it a
turn."

Frederick Massingbird locked the box, and then left the room. His mother
followed him, telling John she had a large steel thimble somewhere, and
would try to find it for him. Rachel began filling the huswife with
needles, and John went on with his packing.

"Hollo!" he presently exclaimed. And Rachel looked up.

"What's the matter, sir?"

"I have pulled one of the strings off this green case. You must sew it
on again, Rachel."

He brought a piece of green baize to her and a broken string. It looked
something like the cover of a pocket-book or of a small case of
instruments.

Rachel's nimble fingers soon repaired the damage. John stood before her,
looking on.

Looking not only at the progress of the work, but at her. Mr. John
Massingbird was one who had an eye for beauty; he had not seen much in
his life that could match with that before him. As Rachel held the case
up to him, the damage repaired, he suddenly bent his head to steal a
kiss.

But Rachel was too quick for him. She flung his face away with her hand;
she flushed vividly; she was grievously indignant. That she considered
it in the light of an insult was only too apparent; her voice was
pained--her words were severe.

"Be quiet, stupid! I was not going to eat you," laughed John
Massingbird. "I won't tell Luke."

"Insult upon insult!" she exclaimed, strangely excited. "You know that
Luke Roy is nothing to me, Mr. Massingbird; you know that I have never
in my life vouchsafed to give him an encouraging word. But, much as I
despise him--much as he is beneath me--I would rather submit to have my
face touched by him than by you."

What more she would have said was interrupted by the reappearance of
Mrs. Verner. That lady's ears had caught the sound of the contest; of
the harsh words; and she felt inexpressibly surprised.

"What has happened?" she asked. "What is it, Rachel?"

"She pricked herself with one of the needles," said John, taking the
explanation upon himself; "and then said I did it."

Mrs. Verner looked from one to the other. Rachel had turned quite pale.
John laughed; he knew his mother did not believe him.

"The truth is, mother, I began teasing Rachel about her admirer, Luke.
It made her angry."

"What absurdity!" exclaimed Mrs. Verner testily, to Rachel. "My opinion
is, you would have done well to encourage Luke. He was steady and
respectable; and old Roy must have saved plenty of money."

Rachel burst into tears.

"What now!" cried Mrs. Verner. "Not a word can anybody say to you
lately, Rachel, but you must begin to cry as if you were heart-broken.
What has come to you, child? Is anything the matter with you?"

The tears deepened into long sobs of agony, as though her heart were
indeed broken. She held her handkerchief up to her face, and went
sobbing from the room.

Mrs. Verner gazed after her in very astonishment. "What has taken her?
What can it possibly be?" she uttered. "John, you must know."

"I, mother! I declare to you that I know no more about it than Adam.
Rachel must be going a little crazed."




CHAPTER II.

THE WILLOW POND.


Before the sun had well set, the family at Verner's Pride were
assembling for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Verner, and John Massingbird:
neither Lionel Verner nor Frederick Massingbird was present. The usual
custom appeared somewhat reversed on this evening: while roving John
would be just as likely to absent himself from dinner as not, his
brother and Lionel Verner nearly always appeared at it. Mr. Verner
looked surprised.

"Where are they?" he cried, as he waited to say grace.

"Mr. Lionel has not come in, sir," replied the butler, Tynn, who was
husband to the housekeeper.

"And Fred has gone out to keep some engagement with Sibylla West," spoke
up Mrs. Verner. "She is going to spend the evening at the Bitterworths,
and Fred promised, I believe, to see her safely thither. He will take
his dinner when he comes in."

Mr. Verner bent his head, said the grace, and the dinner began.

Later--but not much later, for it was scarcely dark yet--Rachel Frost
was leaving the house to pay a visit in the adjoining village, Deerham.
Her position may be at once explained. It was mentioned in the last
chapter that Mr. Verner had had one daughter, who died young. The mother
of Rachel Frost had been this child's nurse, Rachel being an infant at
the same time, so that the child, Rachel Verner, and Rachel Frost--named
after her--had been what is called foster-sisters. It had caused Mr.
Verner, and his wife also while she lived, to take an interest in Rachel
Frost; it is very probable that their own child's death only made this
interest greater. They were sufficiently wise not to lift the girl
palpably out of her proper sphere; but they paid for a decent education
for her at a day-school, and were personally kind to her. Rachel--I
was going to say fortunately, but it may be as just to say
_un_fortunately--was one of those who seem to make the best of every
trifling advantage: she had grown, without much effort of her own, into
what might be termed a lady, in appearance, in manners, and in speech.
The second Mrs. Verner also took an interest in her; and nearly a year
before this period, on Rachel's eighteenth birthday, she took her to
Verner's Pride as her own attendant.

A fascinating, lovable child had Rachel Frost ever been: she was a
fascinating, lovable girl. Modest, affectionate, generous, everybody
liked Rachel; she had not an enemy, so far as was known, in all Deerham.
Her father was nothing but a labourer on the Verner estate; but in mind
and conduct he was superior to his station; an upright, conscientious,
and, in some degree, a proud man: her mother had been dead several
years. Rachel was proud too, in her way; proud and sensitive.

Rachel, dressed in her bonnet and shawl, passed out of the house by the
front entrance. She would not have presumed to do so by daylight; but it
was dusk now, the family not about, and it cut off a few yards of the
road to the village. The terrace--which you have heard of as running
along the front of the house--sloped gradually down at either end to the
level ground, so as to admit the approach of carriages.

Riding up swiftly to the door, as Rachel appeared at it, was a gentleman
of some five or six and twenty years. Horse and man both looked
thoroughbred. Tall, strong, and slender, with a keen, dark blue eye, and
regular features of a clear, healthy paleness, he--the man--would draw a
second glance to himself wherever he might be met. His face was not
inordinately handsome; nothing of the sort; but it wore an air of
candour, of noble truth. A somewhat impassive face in repose, somewhat
cold; but, in speaking, it grew expressive to animation, and the frank
smile that would light it up made its greatest charm. The smile stole
over it now, as he checked his horse and bent towards Rachel.

"Have they thought me lost? I suppose dinner is begun?"

"Dinner has been in this half-hour, sir."

"All right. I feared they might wait. What's the matter, Rachel? You've
been making your eyes red."

"The matter! There's nothing the matter with me, Mr. Lionel," was
Rachel's reply, her tone betraying a touch of annoyance. And she turned
and walked swiftly along the terrace, beyond reach of the glare of the
gas-lamp.

Up stole a man at this moment, who must have been hidden amid the
pillars of the portico, watching the transient meeting, watching for an
opportunity to speak. It was Roy, the bailiff; and he accosted the
gentleman with the same complaint, touching the ill-doings of the
Dawsons and the village in general, that had previously been carried to
Mr. Verner by Frederick Massingbird.

"I was told to wait and take my orders from you, sir," he wound up with.
"The master don't like to be troubled, and he wouldn't give none."

"Neither shall I give any," was the answer, "until I know more about
it."

"They ought to be got out to-night, Mr. Lionel!" exclaimed the man,
striking his hand fiercely against the air. "They sow all manner of
incendiarisms in the place, with their bad example."

"Roy," said Lionel Verner, in a quiet tone, "I have not, as you know,
interfered actively in the management of things. I have not opposed my
opinion against my uncle's, or much against yours; I have not come
between you and him. When I have given orders, they have been his
orders, not mine. But many things go on that I disapprove of; and I tell
you very candidly that, were I to become master to-morrow, my first act
would be to displace you, unless you could undertake to give up these
nasty acts of petty oppression."

"Unless some of 'em was oppressed and kept under, they'd be for riding
roughshod over the whole of us," retorted Roy.

"Nonsense!" said Lionel. "Nothing breeds rebellion like oppression. You
are too fond of oppression, Roy, and Mr. Verner knows it."

"They be a idle, poaching, good-for-nothing lot, them Dawsons," pursued
Roy. "And now that they be behind-hand with their rent, it is a glorious
opportunity to get rid of 'em. I'd turn 'em into the road, without a bed
to lie on, this very night!"

"How would you like to be turned into the road, without a bed to lie
on?" demanded Lionel.

"Me!" returned Roy, in deep dudgeon. "Do you compare me to that Dawson
lot? When I give cause to be turned out, then I hope I may be turned
out, sir, that's all. Mr. Lionel," he added, in a more conciliating
tone, "I know better about out-door things than you, and I say it's
necessary to be shut of the Dawsons. Give me power to act in this."

"I will not," said Lionel. "I forbid you to act in it at all, until the
circumstances shall have been inquired into."

He sprung from his horse, flung the bridle to the groom, who was at that
moment coming forward, and strode into the house with the air of a young
chieftain. Certainly Lionel Verner appeared fitted by nature to be the
heir of Verner's Pride.

Rachel Frost, meanwhile, gained the road and took the path to the left
hand; which would lead her to the village. Her thoughts were bent on
many sources, not altogether pleasant, one of which was the annoyance
she had experienced at finding her name coupled with that of the
bailiff's son, Luke Roy. There was no foundation for it. She had
disliked Luke, rather than liked him, her repugnance to him no doubt
arising from the very favour he felt disposed to show to her; and her
account of past matters to the bailiff was in accordance with the facts.
As she walked along, pondering, she became aware that two people were
advancing towards her in the dark twilight. She knew them instantly,
almost by intuition, but they were too much occupied with each other yet
to have noticed her. One was Frederick Massingbird, and the young lady
on his arm was his cousin, Sibylla West, a girl young and fascinating as
was Rachel. Mr. Frederick Massingbird had been suspected of a liking,
more than ordinary, for this young lady; but he had protested in
Rachel's hearing, as in that of others, that his was only cousin's love.
Some impulse prompted Rachel to glide in at a field-gate which she was
then passing, and stand behind the hedge until they should have gone
by. Possibly she did not care to be seen.

It was a still night, and their voices were borne distinctly to Rachel
as they slowly advanced. The first words to reach her came from the
young lady.

"You will be going out after him, Frederick. That will be the next thing
I expect."

"Sibylla," was the answer, and his accents bore that earnest, tender,
confidential tone which of itself alone betrays love, "be you very sure
of one thing: that I go neither there nor elsewhere without taking you."

"Oh, Frederick, is not John enough to go?"

"If I saw a better prospect there than here, I should follow him. After
he has arrived and is settled, he will write and report. My darling, I
am ever thinking of the future for your sake."

"But is it not a dreadful country? There are wolves and bears in it that
eat people up."

Frederick Massingbird slightly laughed at the remark. "Do you think I
would take my wife into the claws of wolves and bears?" he asked, in a
tone of the deepest tenderness. "She will be too precious to me for
that, Sibylla."

The voices and the footsteps died away in the distance, and Rachel came
out of her hiding-place, and went quickly on towards the village. Her
father's cottage was soon gained. He did not live alone. His only son,
Robert--who had a wife and family--lived with him. Robert was the son of
his youth; Rachel the daughter of his age; the children of two wives.
Matthew Frost's wife had died in giving birth to Robert, and twenty
years elapsed ere he married a second. He was seventy years of age now,
but still upright as a dart, with a fine fresh complexion, a clear
bright eye, and snow-white hair that fell in curls behind, on the collar
of his white smock-frock.

He was sitting at a small table apart when Rachel entered, a candle and
a large open Bible on it. A flock of grandchildren crowded round him,
two of them on his knees. He was showing them the pictures. To gaze
wonderingly on those pictures, and never tire of asking explanations of
their mysteries, was the chief business of the little Frosts' lives.
Robert's wife--but he was hardly ever called anything but Robin--was
preparing something over the fire for the evening meal. Rachel went up
and kissed her father. He scattered the children from him to make room
for her. He loved her dearly. Robin loved her dearly. When Robin was a
grown-up young man the pretty baby had come to be his plaything. Robin
seemed to love her still better than he loved his own children.

"Thee'st been crying, child!" cried old Matthew Frost. "What has ailed
thee?"

Had Rachel known that the signs of her past tears were so palpable as to
call forth remark from everybody she met, as it appeared they were
doing, she might have remained at home. Putting on a gay face, she
laughed off the matter. Matthew pressed it.

"Something went wrong at home, and I got a scolding," said Rachel at
length. "It was not worth crying over, though."

Mrs. Frost turned round from her saucepan.

"A scolding from the missis, Rachel?"

"There's nobody else at Verner's Pride should scold me," responded
Rachel, with a charming little air of self-consequence. "Mrs. Verner
said a cross word or two, and I was so stupid as to burst out crying. I
have had a headache all day, and that's sure to put me out of sorts."

"There's always things to worry one in service, let it be ever so good
on the whole," philosophically observed Mrs. Frost, bestowing her
attention again upon the saucepan. "Better be one's own missus on a
crust, say I, than at the beck and call of others."

"Rachel," interrupted old Matthew, "when I let you go to Verner's Pride,
I thought it was for your good. But I'd not keep you there a day, child,
if you be unhappy."

"Dear father, don't take up that notion," she quickly rejoined. "I am
happier at Verner's Pride than I should be anywhere else. I would not
leave it. Where is Robin this evening?"

"Robin--"

The answer was interrupted by the entrance of Robin himself. A short man
with a red face, somewhat obstinate-looking. His eye lighted up when he
saw Rachel; Mrs. Frost poured out the contents of her saucepan, which
appeared to be a compound of Scotch oatmeal and treacle. Rachel was
invited to take some, but declined. She lifted one of the children on
her knee--a pretty little girl named after herself. The child did not
seem well, and Rachel hushed it to her, bringing down her own sweet
face caressingly upon the little one's.

"So I hear as Mr. John Massingbird's a-going to London on a visit?"
cried Robin to his sister, holding out his basin for a second supply of
the porridge.

The question had to be repeated three times, and then Rachel seemed to
awake to it with a start. She had been gazing at vacancy, as if buried
in a dream.

"Mr. John? A visit to London? Oh, yes, yes; he is going to London."

"Do he make much of a stay?"

"I can't tell," said Rachel slightingly. A certain confidence had been
reposed in her at Verner's Pride; but it was not her business to make it
known, even in her father's home. Rachel was not a good hand at
deception, and she changed the subject. "Has there not been some
disturbance with the Dawsons to-day? Old Roy was at Verner's Pride this
afternoon, and the servants have been saying he came up about the
Dawsons."

"He wanted to turn 'em out," replied Robin.

"He's Grip Roy all over," said Mrs. Frost.

Old Matthew Frost shook his head. "There has been ill-feeling
smouldering between Roy and old Dawson this long while," said he. "Now
that it's come to open war, I misdoubt me but there'll be violence."

"There's ill-feeling between Roy and a many more, father, besides the
Dawsons," observed Robin.

"Ay! Rachel, child"--turning his head to the hearth, where his daughter
sat apart--"folks have said that young Luke wants to make up to you. But
I'd not like it. Luke's a good-meaning, kind-hearted lad himself, but
I'd not like you to be daughter-in-law to old Roy."

"Be easy, father dear. I'd not have Luke Roy if he were made of gold. I
never yet had anything to say to him, and I never will have. We can't
help our likes and dislikes."

"Pshaw!" said Robin, with pardonable pride. "Pretty Rachel is not for a
daft chap like Luke Roy, that's a head and ears shorter nor other men.
Be you, my dear one?"

Rachel laughed. Her conscience told her that she enjoyed a joke at
Luke's undersize. She took a shower of kisses from the little girl, put
her down, and rose.

"I must go," she said. "Mrs. Verner may be calling for me."

"Don't she know you be come out?" asked old Matthew.

"No. But do not fear that I came clandestinely--or, as our servants
would say, on the sly," added Rachel, with a smile. "Mrs. Verner has
told me to run down to see you whenever I like, after she has gone in to
dinner. Good-night, dear father."

The old man pressed her to his heart: "Don't thee get fretting again my
blessing. I don't care to see thee with red eyes."

For answer, Rachel burst into tears then--a sudden, violent burst. She
dashed them away again with a defiant, reckless sort of air, broke, into
a laugh, and laid the blame on her headache. Robin said he would walk
home with her.

"No, Robin, I would rather you did not to-night," she replied. "I have
two or three things to get at Mother Duff's, and I shall stop there a
bit, gossiping. After that, I shall be home in a trice. It's not dark;
and, if it were, who'd harm me?"

They laughed. To imagine harm of any sort occurring, through walking a
mile or so alone at night, would never enter the head of honest country
people. Rachel departed; and Robin, who was a domesticated man upon the
whole, helped his wife to put the children to bed.

Scarcely an hour later, a strange commotion arose in the village. People
ran about wildly, whispering dread words to one another. A woman had
just been drowned in the Willow Pond.

The whole place flocked down to the Willow Pond. On its banks, the
centre of an awe-struck crowd, which had been quickly gathering, lay a
body, recently taken out of the water. It was all that remained of poor
Rachel Frost--cold, and white, and DEAD!




CHAPTER III.

THE NEWS BROUGHT HOME.


Seated in the dining-room at Verner's Pride, comfortably asleep in an
arm-chair, her face turned to the fire and her feet on a footstool, was
Mrs. Verner. The dessert remained on the table, but nobody was there to
partake of it. Mr. Verner had retired to his study upon the withdrawal
of the cloth, according to his usual custom. Always a man of spare
habits, shunning the pleasures of the table, he had scarcely taken
sufficient to support nature since his health failed. Mrs. Verner would
remonstrate; but his medical attendant, Dr. West, said it was better for
him that it should be so. Lionel Verner (who had come in for the tail of
the dinner) and John Massingbird had likewise left the room and the
house, but not together. Mrs. Verner sat on alone. She liked to take her
share of dessert, if the others did not, and she generally remained in
the dining-room for the evening, rarely caring to move. Truth to say,
Mrs. Verner was rather addicted to dropping asleep with her last glass
of wine and waking up with the tea-tray, and she did so this evening.

Of course work goes on downstairs (or is supposed to go on) whether the
mistress of a house be asleep or awake. It really was going on that
evening in the laundry at Verner's Pride, whatever it may have been
doing in the other various branches and departments. The laundry-maids
had had heavy labour on their hands that day, and they were hard at work
still, while Mrs. Verner slept.

"Here's Mother Duff's Dan a-coming in!" exclaimed one of the women,
glancing over her ironing-board to the yard. "What do he want, I
wonder?"

"Who?" cried Nancy, the under-housemaid, a tart sort of girl, whose
business it was to assist in the laundry on busy days.

"Dan Duff. Just see what he wants, Nancy. He's got a parcel."

The gentleman familiarly called Dan Duff was an urchin of ten years old.
He was the son of Mrs. Duff, linen-draper-in-ordinary to Deerham--a lady
popularly spoken of as "Mother Duff," both behind her back and before
her face. Nancy darted out at the laundry-door and waylaid the intruder
in the yard.

"Now, Dan Duff!" cried she, "what do you want?"

"Please, here's this," was Dan Duff's reply, handing over the parcel.
"And, please, I want to see Rachel Frost."

"Who's it for? What's inside it?" sharply asked Nancy, regarding the
parcel on all sides.

"It's things as Rachel Frost have been a-buying," he replied. "Please, I
want to see her."

"Then want must be your master," retorted Nancy. "Rachel Frost's not at
home."

"_Ain't_ she?" returned Dan Duff, with surprised emphasis. "Why, she
left our shop a long sight afore I did! Mother says, please, would she
mind having some o' the dark lavender print instead o' the light, 'cause
Susan Peckaby's come in, and she wants the whole o' the light lavender
for a gownd, and there's only just enough of it. And, please, I be to
take word back."

"How are you to take word back if she's not in?" asked Nancy, whose
temper never was improved by extra work. "Get along, Dan Duff! You must
come along again to-morrow if you want her."

Dan Duff turned to depart, in meek obedience, and Nancy carried the
parcel into the laundry and flung it down on the ironing-board.

"It's fine to be Rachel Frost," she sarcastically cried. "Going shopping
like any lady, and having her things sent home for her! And messages
about her gownds coming up--which will she have, if you please, and
which won't she have! I'll borror one of the horses to-morrow, and go
shopping myself on a side-saddle!"

"Has Rachel gone shopping to-night?" cried one of the women, pausing in
her ironing. "I did not know she was out."

"She has been out all the evening," was Nancy's answer. "I met her
coming down the stairs, dressed. And she could tell a story over it,
too, for she said she was going to see her old father."

But Master Dan Duff is not done with yet. If that gentleman stood in awe
of one earthly thing more than another, it was of the anger of his
revered mother. Mrs. Duff, in her maternal capacity, was rather free
both with her hands and tongue. Being sole head of her flock, for she
was a widow, she deemed it best to rule with firmness, not to say
severity; and her son Dan, awed by his own timid nature, tried hard to
steer his course so as to avoid shoals and quicksands. He crossed the
yard, after the rebuff administered by Nancy, and passed out at the
gate, where he stood still to revolve affairs. His mother had
imperatively ordered him to _bring back_ the answer touching the
intricate question of the light and the dark lavender prints; and Susan
Peckaby--one of the greatest idlers in all Deerham--said she would wait
in the shop until he came with it. He stood softly whistling, his hands
in his pockets, and balancing himself on his heels.

"I'll get a basting, for sure," soliloquised he. "Mother'll lose the
sale of the gownd, and then she'll say it's my fault, and baste me for
it. What's of her? Why couldn't she ha' come home, as she said?"

He set his wits to work to divine what _could_ have "gone of
her"--alluding, of course, to Rachel. And a bright thought occurred to
him--really not an unnatural one--that she had probably taken the other
road home. It was a longer round, through the fields, and there were
stiles to climb, and gates to mount; which might account for the delay.
He arrived at the conclusion, though somewhat slow of drawing
conclusions in general, that if he returned home that way, he should
meet Rachel; and could then ask the question.

If he turned to his left hand--standing as he did at the gate with his
back to the back of the house--he would regain the high road, whence he
came. Did he turn to the right, he would plunge into fields and lanes,
and covered ways, and emerge at length, by a round, in the midst of the
village, almost close to his own house. It was a lonely way at night,
and longer than the other, but Master Dan Duff regarded those as
pleasant evils, in comparison with a "basting." He took his hands out of
his pockets, brought down his feet to a level, and turned to it,
whistling still.

It was a tolerably light night. The moon was up, though not very high,
and a few stars might be seen here and there in the blue canopy above.
Mr. Dan Duff proceeded on his way, not very quickly. Some dim idea was
penetrating his brain that the slower he walked, the better chance there
might be of his meeting Rachel.

"She's just a cat, is that Susan Peckaby!" decided he, with acrimony, in
the intervals of his whistling. "It was her as put mother up to the
thought o' sending me to-night: Rachel Frost said the things 'ud do in
the morning. 'Let Dan carry 'em up now,' says Dame Peckaby, 'and ask her
about the print, and then I'll take it home along o' me.' And if I go in
without the answer, she'll be the first to help mother to baste me! Hi!
ho! hur! hur-r-r-r!"

This last exclamation was caused by his catching sight of some small
animal scudding along. He was at that moment traversing a narrow,
winding lane; and, in the field to the right, as he looked in at the
open gate, he saw the movement. It might be a cat, it might be a hare,
it might be a rabbit, it might be some other animal; it was all one to
Mr. Dan Duff; and he had not been a boy had he resisted the propensity
to pursue it. Catching up a handful of earth from the lane, he shied it
in the proper direction, and tore in at the gate after it.

Nothing came of the pursuit. The trespasser had earthed itself, and Mr.
Dan came slowly back again. He had nearly approached the gate, when
somebody passed it, walking up the lane with a very quick step, from the
direction in which he, Dan, was bound. Dan saw enough to know that it
was not Rachel, for it was the figure of a man; but Dan set off to run,
and emerged from the gate just in time to catch another glimpse of the
person, as he disappeared beyond the windings of the lane.

"'Twarn't Rachel, at all events," was his comment. And he turned and
pursued his way again.

It was somewhere about this time that Tynn made his appearance in the
dining-room at Verner's Pride, to put away the dessert, and set the tea.
The stir woke up Mrs. Verner.

"Send Rachel to me," said she, winking and blinking at the tea-cups.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Tynn.

He left the room when he had placed the cups and things to his
satisfaction. He called for Rachel high and low, up and down. All to no
purpose. The servants did not appear to know anything of her. One of
them went to the door and shouted out to the laundry to know whether
Rachel was there, and the answering shout "No" came back. The footman at
length remembered that he had seen her go out at the hall door while the
dinner was in. Tynn carried this item of information to Mrs. Verner. It
did not please her.

"Of course!" she grumbled. "Let me want any one of you particularly, and
you are sure to be away! If she did go out, she ought not to stay as
long as this. Who's this coming in?"

It was Frederick Massingbird. He entered, singing a scrap of a song;
which was cut suddenly short when his eye fell on the servant.

"Tynn," said he, "you must bring me something to eat. I have had no
dinner."

"You cannot be very hungry, or you'd have come in before," remarked Mrs.
Verner to him. "It is tea-time now."

"I'll take tea and dinner together," was his answer.

"But you ought to have been in before," she persisted; for, though an
easy mistress and mother, Mrs. Verner did not like the order of meals to
be displaced. "Where have you stayed, Fred? You have not been all this
while taking Sibylla West to Bitterworth's."

"You must talk to Sibylla West about that," answered Fred. "When young
ladies keep you a good hour waiting, while they make themselves ready to
start, you can't get back precisely to your own time."

"What did she keep you waiting for?" questioned Mrs. Verner.

"Some mystery of the toilette, I conclude. When I got there, Amilly said
Sibylla was dressing; and a pretty prolonged dressing it appeared to be!
Since I left her at Bitterworth's, I have been to Poynton's about my
mare. She was as lame as ever to-day."

"And there's Rachel out now, just as I am wanting her!" went on Mrs.
Verner, who, when she did lapse into a grumbling mood, was fond of
calling up a catalogue of grievances.

"At any rate, that's not my fault, mother," observed Frederick. "I dare
say she will soon be in. Rachel is not given to stay out, I fancy, if
there's a chance of her being wanted."

Tynn came in with his tray, and Frederick Massingbird sat down to it.
Tynn then waited for Mr. Verner's tea, which he carried into the study.
He carried a cup in every evening, but Mr. Verner scarcely ever touched
it. Then Tynn returned to the room where the upper servants took their
meals and otherwise congregated, and sat down to read a newspaper. He
was a little man, very stout, his plain clothes always scrupulously
neat.

A few minutes, and Nancy came in, the parcel left by Dan Duff in her
hand. The housekeeper asked her what it was. She explained in her crusty
way, and said something to the same effect that she had said in the
laundry--that it was fine to be Rachel Frost. "She's long enough making
her way up here!" Nancy wound up with.

"Dan Duff says she left their shop to come home before he did. If Luke
Roy was in Deerham one would know what to think!"

"Bah!" cried the housekeeper. "Rachel Frost has nothing to say to Luke
Roy."

Tynn laid down his paper, and rose. "I'll just tell the mistress that
Rachel's on her way home," said he. "She's put up like anything at her
being out--wants her for something particular, she says."

Barely had he departed on his errand, when a loud commotion was heard in
the passage. Mr. Dan Duff had burst in at the back door, uttering sounds
of distress--of fright--his eyes starting, his hair standing on end, his
words nearly unintelligible.

"Rachel Frost is in the Willow Pond--drownded!"

The women shrieked when they gathered in the sense. It was enough to
make them shriek. Dan Duff howled in concert. The passages took up the
sounds and echoed them; and Mrs. Verner, Frederick Massingbird, and Tynn
came hastening forth. Mr. Verner followed, feeble, and leaning on his
stick. Frederick Massingbird seized upon the boy, questioning sharply.

"Rachel Frost's a-drowned in the Willow Pond," he reiterated. "I see'd
her."

A moment of pause, of startled suspense, and then they flew off, men and
women, as with one accord, Frederick Massingbird leading the van. Social
obligations were forgotten in the overwhelming excitement, and Mr. and
Mrs. Verner were left to keep house for themselves. Tynn, indeed,
recollected himself, and turned back.

"No," said Mr. Verner. "Go with the rest, Tynn, and see what it is, and
whether anything can be done."

He might have crept thither himself in his feeble strength, but he had
not stirred out of the house for two years.




CHAPTER IV.

THE CROWD IN THE MOONLIGHT.


The Willow Pond, so called from its being surrounded with weeping
willows, was situated at the corner of a field, in a retired part of the
road, about midway between Verner's Pride and Deerham. There was a great
deal of timber about that part; it was altogether as lonely as could be
desired. When the runners from Verner's Pride reached it, assistance had
already arrived, and Rachel, rescued from the pond, was being laid upon
the grass. All signs of life were gone.

Who had done it?--what had caused it?--was it an accident?--was it a
self-committed act?--or was it a deed of violence? What brought her
there at all? No young girl would be likely to take that way home (with
all due deference to the opinion of Master Dan Duff) alone at night.

What was to be done? The crowd propounded these various questions in so
many marvels of wonder, and hustled each other, and talked incessantly;
but to be of use, to direct, nobody appeared capable. Frederick
Massingbird stepped forward with authority.

"Carry her at once to Verner's Pride--with all speed. And some of
you"--turning to the servants of the house--"hasten on, and get water
heated and blankets hot. Get hot bricks--get anything and everything
likely to be required. How did she get in?"

He appeared to speak the words more in the light of a wailing regret,
than as a question. It was a question that none present appeared able to
answer. The crowd was increasing rapidly. One of them suggested that
Broom the gamekeeper's cottage was nearer than Verner's Pride.

"But there will be neither hot water nor blankets there," returned
Frederick Massingbird.

"The house is the best. Make haste! don't let grass grow under your
feet."

"A moment," interposed a gentleman who now came hastily up, as they were
raising the body. "Lay her down again."

They obeyed him eagerly, and fell a little back that he might have space
to bend over her. It was the doctor of the neighbourhood, resident at
Deerham. He was a fine man in figure, dark and florid in face, but a
more impassive countenance could not well be seen, and he had the
peculiarity of rarely looking a person in the face. If a patient's eyes
were mixed on Dr. West's, Dr. West's were invariably fixed upon
something else. A clever man in his profession, holding an Edinburgh
degree, and practising as a general practitioner. He was brother to the
present Mrs. Verner; consequently, uncle to the two young Massingbirds.

"Has anybody got a match?" he asked.

One of the Verner's Pride servants had a whole boxful, and two or three
were lighted at a time, and held so that the doctor could see the
drowned face better than he could in the uncertain moonlight. It was a
strange scene. The lonely, weird character of the place; the dark trees
scattered about; the dull pond with its bending willows; the swaying,
murmuring crowd collected round the doctor and what he was bending over;
the bright flickering flame of the match-light; with the pale moon
overhead, getting higher and higher as the night went on, and struggling
her way through passing clouds.

"How did it happen?" asked Dr. West.

Before any answer could be given, a man came tearing up at the top of
his speed; several men, indeed, it may be said. The first was Roy, the
bailiff. Upon Roy's leaving Verner's Pride, after the rebuke bestowed
upon him by its heir, he had gone straight down to the George and
Dragon, a roadside inn, situated on the outskirts of the village, on the
road from Verner's Pride. Here he had remained, consorting with
droppers-in from Deerham, and soothing his mortification with a pipe and
sundry cans of ale. When the news was brought in that Rachel Frost was
drowned in the Willow-pond, Roy, the landlord, and the company
collectively, started off to see.

"Why, it _is_ her!" uttered Roy, taking a hasty view of poor Rachel. "I
said it wasn't possible. I saw her and talked to her up at the house but
two or three hours ago. How did she get in?"

The same question always; from all alike: how did she get in? Dr. West
rose.

"You can move her," he said.

"Is she dead, sir?"

"Yes."

Frederick Massingbird--who had been the one to hold the matches--caught
the doctor's arm.

"Not _dead_!" he uttered. "Not dead beyond hope of restoration?"

"She will never be restored in this world," was the reply of Dr. West.
"She is quite dead."

"Measures should be tried, at any rate," said Frederick Massingbird
warmly.

"By all means," acquiesced Dr. West. "It will afford satisfaction,
though it should do nothing else."

They raised her once more, her clothes dripping, and turned with quiet,
measured steps towards Verner's Pride. Of course the whole assemblage
attended. They were eagerly curious, boiling over with excitement; but,
to give them their due, they were earnestly anxious to afford any aid in
their power, and contended who should take turn at bearing that wet
burden. Not one but felt sorely grieved for Rachel. Even Nancy was
subdued to meekness, as she sped on to be one of the busiest in
preparing remedies; and old Roy, though somewhat inclined to regard it
in the light of a judgment upon proud Rachel for slighting his son, felt
some twinges of pitying regret.

"I have knowed cases where people, dead from drownding, have been
restored to life," said Roy, as they walked along.

"That you never have," replied Dr. West. "The _apparently_ dead have
been restored; the dead, never."

Panting, breathless, there came up one as they reached Verner's Pride.
He parted the crowd, and threw himself almost upon Rachel with a wild
cry. He caught up her cold, wet face, and passing his hands over it,
bent down his warm cheek upon it.

"Who has done it?" he sobbed. "What has done it? She couldn't have fell
in alone."

It was Robin Frost. Frederick Massingbird drew him away by the arm.
"Don't hinder, Robin. Every minute may be worth a life."

And Robin, struck with the argument, obeyed docilely like a little
child.

Mr. Verner, leaning on his stick, trembling with weakness and emotion,
stood just without the door of the laundry, which had been hastily
prepared, as the bearers tramped in.

"It is an awful tragedy!" he murmured. "Is it true"--addressing Dr.
West--"that you think there is no hope?"

"I am sure there is none," was the answer. "But every means shall be
tried."

The laundry was cleared of the crowd, and their work began. One of the
next to come up was old Matthew Frost. Mr. Verner took his hand.

"Come in to my own room, Matthew," he said. "I feel for you deeply."

"Nay, sir; I must look upon her."

Mr. Verner pointed with his stick in the direction of the laundry.

"They are shut in there--the doctor and those whom he requires round
him," he said. "Let them be undisturbed; it is the only chance."

All things likely to be wanted had been conveyed to the laundry; and
they were shut in there, as Mr. Verner expressed it, with their fires
and their heat. On dragged the time. Anxious watchers were in the house,
in the yard, gathered round the back gate. The news had spread, and
gentlepeople, friends of the Verners, came hasting from their homes, and
pressed into Verner's Pride, and asked question upon question of Mr. and
Mrs. Verner, of everybody likely to afford an answer. Old Matthew Frost
stood outwardly calm and collected, full of inward trust, as a good man
should be. He had learned where to look for support in the darkest
trial. Mr. Verner in that night of sorrow seemed to treat him as a
brother.

One hour! Two hours! and still they plied their remedies, under the able
direction of Dr. West. All was of no avail, as the experienced physician
had told them. Life was extinct. Poor Rachel Frost was really dead!




CHAPTER V.

THE TALL GENTLEMAN IN THE LANE.


Apart from the horror of the affair, it was altogether attended with so
much mystery that that of itself would have kept the excitement alive.
What could have taken Rachel Frost near the pond at all? Allowing that
she had chosen that lonely road for her way home--which appeared
unlikely in the extreme--she must still have gone out of it to approach
the pond, must have walked partly across a field to gain it. Had her
path led close by it, it would have been a different matter: it might
have been supposed (unlikely still, though) that she had missed her
footing and fallen in. But unpleasant rumours were beginning to
circulate in the crowd. It was whispered that sounds of a contest, the
voices being those of a man and a woman, had been heard in that
direction at the time of the accident, or about the time; and these
rumours reached the ear of Mr. Verner.

For the family to think of bed, in the present state of affairs, or the
crowd to think of dispersing, would have been in the highest degree
improbable. Mr. Verner set himself to get some sort of solution first.
One told one tale; one, another: one asserted something else; another,
the exact opposite. Mr. Verner--and in saying Mr. Verner, we must
include all--was fairly puzzled. A notion had sprung up that Dinah Roy,
the bailiffs wife, could tell something about it if she would. Certain
it was, that she had stood amid the crowd, cowering and trembling,
shrinking from observation as much as possible, and recoiling visibly if
addressed.

A word of this suspicion at last reached her husband. It angered him. He
was accustomed to keep his wife in due submission. She was a little
body, with a pinched face and a sharp red nose, given to weeping upon
every possible occasion, and as indulgently fond of her son Luke as she
was afraid of her husband. Since Luke's departure she had passed the
better part of her time in tears.

"Now," said Roy, going up to her with authority, and drawing her apart,
"what's this as is up with you?"

She looked round her, and shuddered.

"Oh, law!" cried she, with a moan. "Don't you begin to ask, Giles, or I
shall be fit to die."

"Do you know anything about this matter, or don't you?" cried he
savagely. "Did you see anything?"

"What should I be likely to see of it?" quaked Mrs. Roy.

"Did you see Rachel fall into the pond? Or see her a-nigh the pond?"

"No, I didn't," moaned Mrs. Roy. "I never set eyes on Rachel this
blessed night at all. I'd take a text o' scripture to it."

"Then what is the matter with you?" he demanded, giving her a slight
shake.

"Hush, Giles!" responded she, in a tone of unmistakable terror. "I saw a
ghost!"

"Saw a--what?" thundered Giles Roy.

"A ghost!" she repeated. "And it have made me shiver ever since."

Giles Roy knew that his wife was rather prone to flights of fancy. He
was in the habit of administering one sovereign remedy, which he
believed to be an infallible panacea for wives' ailments whenever it was
applied--a hearty good shaking. He gave her a slight instalment as he
turned away.

"Wait till I get ye home," said he significantly. "I'll drive the ghosts
out of ye!"

Mr. Verner had seated himself in his study, with a view of investigating
systematically the circumstances attending the affair, so far as they
were known. At present all seemed involved in a Babel of confusion, even
the open details.

"Those able to tell anything of it shall come before me, one by one," he
observed; "we may get at something then."

The only stranger present was Mr. Bitterworth, an old and intimate
friend of Mr. Verner. He was a man of good property, and resided a
little beyond Verner's Pride. Others--plenty of them--had been eager to
assist in what they called the investigation, but Mr. Verner had
declined. The public investigation would come soon enough, he observed,
and that must satisfy them. Mrs. Verner saw no reason why she should be
absent, and she took her seat. Her sons were there. The news had reached
John out-of-doors, and he had hastened home full of consternation. Dr.
West also remained by request, and the Frosts, father and son, had
pressed in. Mr. Verner could not deny _them._

"To begin at the beginning," observed Mr. Verner, "it appears that
Rachel left this house between six and seven. Did she mention to anybody
where she was going?"

"I believe she did to Nancy, sir," replied Mrs. Tynn, who had been
allowed to remain.

"Then call Nancy in," said Mr. Verner.

Nancy came, but she could not say much: only that, in going up the front
stairs to carry some linen into Mrs. Verner's room, she had met Rachel,
dressed to go out. Rachel had said, in passing her, that she was about
to visit her father.

"And she came?" observed Mr. Verner, turning to Matthew Frost, as Nancy
was dismissed.

"She came, sir," replied the old man, who was having an incessant battle
with himself for calmness; for it was not there, in the presence of
others, that he would willingly indulge his grief. "I saw that she had
been fretting. Her eyes were as red as ferrets'; and I taxed her with
it. She was for turning it off at first, but I pressed for the cause,
and she then said she had been scolded by her mistress."

"By me!" exclaimed Mrs. Verner, lifting her head in surprise. "I had not
scolded her."

But as she spoke she caught the eye of her son John, and she remembered
the little scene of the afternoon.

"I recollect now," she resumed. "I spoke a word of reproof to Rachel,
and she burst into a violent flood of tears, and ran away from me. It
surprised me much. What I said was not sufficient to call forth one
tear, let alone a passionate burst of them."

"What was it about?" asked Mr. Verner.

"I expect John can give a better explanation of it than I," replied Mrs.
Verner, after a pause. "I went out of the room for a minute or two, and
when I returned, Rachel was talking angrily at John. I could not make
out distinctly about what. John had begun to tease her about Luke Roy, I
believe, and she did not like it."

Mr. John Massingbird's conscience called up the little episode of the
coveted kiss. But it might not be altogether prudent to confess it in
full conclave.

"It is true that I did joke Rachel about Luke," he said. "It seemed to
anger her very much, and she paid me out with some hard words. My mother
returned at the same moment. She asked what was the matter; I said I had
joked Rachel about Luke, and that Rachel did not like it."

"Yes, that was it," acquiesced Mrs. Verner. "I then told Rachel that in
my opinion she would have done well to encourage Luke, who was a steady
young man, and would no doubt have a little money. Upon which she began
weeping. I felt rather vexed; not a word have I been able to say to her
lately, but tears have been the answer; and I asked what had come to her
that she should cry for every trifle as if she were heart-broken. With
that, she fell into a burst of sobs, terrifying to see, and ran from the
room. I was thunderstruck. I asked John what could be the matter with
her, and he said he could only think she was going crazed."

John Massingbird nodded his head, as if in confirmation. Old Matthew
Frost spoke up, his voice trembling with the emotion that he was
striving to keep under--

"Did she say what it was that had come to her, ma'am?"

"She did not make any reply at all," rejoined Mrs. Verner. "But it is
quite nonsense to suppose she could have fallen into that wild burst of
grief simply at being joked about Luke. I could not make her out."

"And she has fallen into fretting, you say, ma'am, lately?" pursued
Matthew Frost, leaning his venerable white head forward.

"Often and often," replied Mrs. Verner. "She has seemed quite an altered
girl in the last few weeks!"

"My son's wife has said the same," cried old Matthew. "She has said that
Rachel was changed. But I took it to mean in her looks--that she had got
thinner. You mind the wife saying it, Robin?"

"Yes, I mind it," shortly replied Robin, who had propped himself against
the wall, his arms folded and his head bent. "I'm a-minding all."

"She wouldn't eat a bit o' supper," went on old Matthew. "But that was
nothing," he added; "she used to say she had plenty of food here,
without eating ours. She sat apart by the fire with one o' the little
uns in her lap. She didn't stay over long; she said the missus might be
wanting her, and she left; and when she was kissing my poor old face,
she began sobbing. Robin offered to see her home--"

"And she wouldn't have it," interrupted Robin, looking up for the first
time with a wild expression of despair. "She said she had things to get
at Mother Duff's, and should stop a bit there, a-gossiping. It'll be on
my mind by day and by night, that if I'd went with her, harm couldn't
have come."

"And that was how she left you," pursued Mr. Verner. "You did not see
her after that? You know nothing further of her movements?"

"Nothing further," assented Robin. "I watched her down the lane as far
as the turning, and that was the last."

"Did she go to Mrs. Duff's, I wonder?" asked Mr. Verner.

Oh, yes; several of those present could answer that. There was the
parcel brought up by Dan Duff, as testimony; and, if more had been
needed, Mrs. Duff herself had afforded it, for she made one of the crowd
outside.

"We must have Mrs. Duff in," said Mr. Verner.

Accordingly, Mrs. Duff was brought in--a voluble lady with red hair. Mr.
Verner politely asked her to be seated, but she replied that she'd
prefer to stand, if 'twas all the same. She was used to standing in her
shop, and she couldn't never sit for a minute together when she was
upset.

"Did Rachel Frost purchase things of you this evening, Mrs. Duff?"

"Well, she did, and she didn't," responded Mrs. Duff. "I never calls it
purchasing of things, sir, when a customer comes in and says, 'Just cut
me off so and so, and send it up.' They be sold, of course, if you look
at it in that light; but I'm best pleased when buyers examines the
goods, and chats a bit over their merits. Susan Peckaby, now, she--"

"What did Rachel Frost buy?" interrupted Mr. Verner, who knew what Mrs.
Duff's tongue was, when it was once set going.

"She looked in at the shop, sir, while I was a-serving little Green with
some bone buttons, that her mother had sent her for. 'I want some Irish
for aprons, Mrs. Duff,' says she. 'Cut off the proper quantity for a
couple, and send it me up some time to-morrow. I'd not give the
trouble,' says she, 'but I can't wait to take it now, for I'm in a hurry
to get home, and I shall be wanting the aprons.' 'What quality--pretty
good?' said I. 'Oh, you know,' says she; 'about the same that I bought
last time. And put in the tape for strings, and a reel of white cotton,
No. 30. And I don't mind if you put in a piece of that German ribbon,
middling width,' she went on. 'It's nicer than tape for nightcaps, and
them sort o' things.' And with that, sir, she was turning out again,
when her eyes was caught by some lavender prints, as was a-hanging just
in the doorway. Two shades of it, there was, dark and light. 'That's
pretty,' says she. 'It's beautiful,' said I; 'they be the sweetest
things I have had in, this many a day; and they be the wide width. Won't
you take some of it for a gownd?' 'No,' says she, 'I'm set up for cotton
gownds.' 'Why not buy a bit of it for a apron or two?' I said.
'Nothing's cleaner than them lavender prints for morning aprons, and
they saves the white.' So she looked at it for a minute, and then she
said I might cut her off a couple o' yards of the light, and send it up
with the other things. Well, sir, Sally Green went away with her
buttons, and I took down the light print, thinking I'd cut off the two
yards at once. Just then, Susan Peckaby comes in for some gray worsted,
and she falls right in love with the print. 'I'll have a gownd of that,'
says she, 'and I'll take it now.' In course, sir, I was only too glad to
sell it to her, for, like Rachel, she's good pay; but when I come to
measure it, there was barely nine yards left, which is what Susan
Peckaby takes for a gownd, being as tall as a maypole. So I was in a
mess; for I couldn't take and sell it all, over Rachel's head, having
offered it to her. 'Perhaps she wouldn't mind having her aprons off the
dark,' says Susan Peckaby; 'it don't matter what colour aprons is
of--they're not like gownds.' And then we agreed that I should send Dan
up here at once to ask her, and Susan Peckaby--who seemed mighty eager
to have the print--said she'd wait till he come back. And I cut off the
white Irish, and wrapped it up with the tape and things, and sent him."

"Rachel Frost had left your shop, then?"

"She left it, sir, when she told me she'd have some of the lavender
print. She didn't stay another minute."

Robin Frost lifted his head again. "She said she was going to stop at
your place for a bit of a gossip, Mother Duff."

"Then she didn't stop," responded that lady. "She never spoke a single
word o' gossip, or looked inclined to speak it. She just spoke out
short, as if she was in a hurry, and she turned clean out o' the shop
afore the words about the lavender print had well left her. Ask Sally
Green, if you don't believe me."

"You did not see which way she took?" observed Mr. Verner.

"No, sir, I didn't; I was behind my counter. But, for the matter o'
that, there was two or three as saw her go out of my shop and take the
turning by the pound--which is a good proof she meant to come home here
by the field way, for that turning, as you know, sir, leads to nowhere
else."

Mr. Verner did know it. He also knew--for witnesses had been speaking of
it outside--that Rachel had been seen to take that turning after she
left Mrs. Duff's shop, and that she was walking with a quick step.

The next person called in was Master Dan Duff--in a state of extreme
consternation at being called in at all. He was planted down in front of
Mr. Verner, his legs restless. An idea crossed his brain that they might
be going to accuse him of putting Rachel into the pond, and he began to
cry. With a good deal of trouble on Mr. Verner's part, owing to the
young gentleman's timidity, and some circumlocution on his own, the
facts, so far as Dan was cognisant of them, were drawn forth. It
appeared that after he had emerged from the field when he made that
slight diversion in pursuit of the running animal, he continued his
road, and had gained the lonely part near where the pond was situated,
when young Broom, the son of Mr. Verner's gamekeeper, ran up and asked
him what was the matter, and whether anybody was in the pond. Broom did
not wait for an answer, but went on to the pond, and Dan Duff followed
him. Sure enough, Rachel Frost was in it. They knew her by her clothes,
as she rose to the surface. Dan Duff, in his terror, went back shrieking
to Verner's Pride, and young Broom, more sensibly, ran for help to get
her out.

"How did young Broom know, or suspect, there was anybody in the pond?"
questioned Mr. Verner.

"I dun know, please, sir," sobbed Dan Duff; "that was what he said as he
runned off to it. He asked me if I had seen any folks about, and I said
I'd only seen that un in the lane."

"Whom did you see in the lane?"

"I dun know who it was, please, sir," returned Dan, sniffing greatly. "I
wasn't a-nigh him."

"But you must have been nigh him if you met him in the lane."

"Please, sir, I wasn't in the lane then. I had runned into the field
after a cat."

"After a cat?"

"Please, sir, 'twere a cat, I think. But it got away, and I didn't find
it. I saw somebody a-passing of the gate up the lane, but I warn't quick
enough to see who."

"Going which way?"

"Please, sir, up towards here. If I hadn't turned into the field, I
should ha' met him face to face. I dun know who it was."

"Did you hear any noise near the pond, or see any movement in its
direction, before you were accosted by Broom?"

"Please, sir, no."

It appeared to be of little use to detain Mr. Duff. In his stead young
Broom was called in. A fine-grown young fellow of nineteen, whose
temperament may be indicated by two words--cool and lazy. He was desired
to give his own explanation.

"I was going home for the night, sir," he began, in answer, "when I
heard the sound of voices in dispute. They seemed to come from the
direction of the grove of trees near the Willow Pond, and I stayed to
listen. I thought perhaps some of the Dawsons and Roy had come to an
encounter out there; but I soon found that one of the voices was that of
a woman. Quite a young voice it sounded, and it was broke by sobs and
tears. The other voice was a man's."

"Only two! Did you recognise them?"

"No, sir, I did not recognise them; I was too far off, maybe. I only
made out that it was two--a man's and a woman's. I stopped a few
minutes, listening, and they seemed to quiet down, and then, as I was
going on again, I came up to Mrs. Roy. She was kneeling down, and--"

"Kneeling down?" interrupted Mr. Verner.

"She was kneeling down, sir, with her hands clasped round the trunk of a
tree, like one in mortal fright. She laid hold of me then, and I asked
what was the matter with her, and she answered that she had been a'most
frightened to death. I asked whether it was at the quarrel, but she only
said, 'Hush! listen!' and at last she set on to cry. Just then we heard
an awful shriek, and a plunge into the water. 'There goes something into
the Willow Pond,' said I, and I was turning to run to it, when Mrs. Roy
shrieked out louder than the other shriek had been, and fell flat down
on the earth. I never hardly see such a face afore for ghastliness. The
moon was shining out full then, and it daunted me to look at her. I
thought she was dead--that the fright had killed her. There wasn't a bit
o' breath in her body, and I raised her head up, not knowing what to do
with her. Presently she heaved a sort of sigh, and opened her eyes; and
with that she seemed to recollect herself, and asked what was in the
pond. I left her and went off to it, meeting Dan Duff--and we found it
was Rachel Frost. Dan, he set on to howl, and wouldn't stay, and I went
for the nearest help, and got her out. That's all, sir."

"Was she already dead?"

"Well, sir, when you first get a person out of the water it's hard to
say whether they be dead or not. She seemed dead, but perhaps if there
had been means right at hand, she might have been brought-to again."

A moan of pain from old Matthew. Mr. Verner continued as it died out--

"Rachel Frost's voice must have been one of those you heard in dispute?"

"Not a doubt of that, sir," replied young Broom. "Any more than that
there must have been foul play at work to get her into the pond, or that
the other disputing voice must have belonged to the man who did it."

"Softly, softly," said Mr. Verner. "Did you see any man about?"

"I saw nobody at all, sir, saving Dan Duff and Mrs. Roy; and Rachel's
quarrel could not have been with either of them. Whoever the other was,
he had made himself scarce."

Robin Frost took a step forward respectfully.

"Did you mind, sir, that Mother Duffs Dan spoke to seeing some person in
the lane?"

"I do," replied Mr. Verner. "I should like to ask the boy another
question or two upon that point. Call him in, one of you."

John Massingbird went out and brought back the boy.

"Mind you have your wits sharp about you this time, Mr. Duff," he
remarked. Which piece of advice had the effect of scaring Mr. Duff's
wits more completely away than they had been scared before.

"You tell us that you saw a man pass up the lane when you were in the
field after the cat," began Mr. Verner. "Was the man walking fast?"

"Please, sir, yes. Afore I could get out o' the gate he was near out o'
sight. He went a'most as fast as the cat did."

"How long was it, after you saw him, before you met young Broom, and
heard that somebody was in the pond?"

"Please, sir, 'twas a'most directly. I was running then, I was."

As the boy's answer fell upon the room, a conviction stole over most of
those collected in it that this man must have been the one who had been
heard in dispute with Rachel Frost.

"Were there no signs about him by which you could recognise him?"
pursued Mr. Verner. "What did he look like? Was he tall or short?"

"Please, sir, he were very tall."

"Could you see his dress? Was it like a gentleman's or a labourer's?"

"Please, sir, I think it looked like a gentleman's--like one o' the
gentlemen's at Verner's Pride."

"Whose? Like which of the gentlemen's?" rang out Mr. Verner's voice,
sharply and sternly, after a moment's pause of surprise, for he
evidently had not expected the answer.

"Please, sir, I dun know which. The clothes looked dark, and the man
were as tall as the gentlemen, or as Calves."

"_Calves?_" echoed Mr. Verner, puzzled.

John Massingbird broke into an involuntary smile. He knew that their
tall footman, Bennet, was universally styled "Calves" in the village.
Dan Duff probably believed it to be his registered name.

But Frederick Massingbird was looking dark and threatening. The
suspicion hinted at--if you can call it a suspicion--angered him. The
villagers were wont to say that Mr. Frederick had ten times more pride
than Mr. John. They were not far wrong--Mr. John had none at all.

"Boy!" Frederick sternly said, "what grounds have you for saying it was
like one of the gentlemen?"

Dan Duff began to sob. "I dun know who it were," he said; "indeed I
don't. But he were tall, and his clothes looked dark. Please, sir, if
you basted me, I couldn't tell no more."

It was believed that he could not. Mr. Verner dismissed him, and John
Massingbird, according to order, went to bring in Mrs. Roy.

He was some little time before he found her. She was discovered at last
in a corner of the steward's room, seated on a low stool, her head bent
down on her knees.

"Now, ma'am," said John, with unwonted politeness, "you are being waited
for."

She looked up, startled. She rose from her low seat, and began to
tremble, her lips moving, her teeth chattering. But no sound came forth.

"You are not going to your hanging, Dinah Roy," said John Massingbird,
by way of consolation. "Mr. Verner is gathering the evidence about this
unfortunate business, and it is your turn to go in and state what you
know, or saw."

She staggered back a step or two, and fell against the wall, her face
changing to one of livid terror.

"I--I--saw nothing!" she gasped.

"Oh, yes, you did! Come along!"

She put up her hands in a supplicating attitude; she was on the point of
sinking on her knees in her abject fear, when at that moment the stern
face of her husband was pushed in at the door. She sprang up as if
electrified, and meekly followed John Massingbird.




CHAPTER VI.

DINAH ROY'S "GHOST."


The moon, high in the heavens, shone down brightly, lighting up the fair
domain of Verner's Pride, lighting up the broad terrace, and one who was
hasting along it; all looking as peaceful as if a deed of dark mystery
had not that night been committed.

He, skimming the terrace with a fleet foot, was that domain's recognised
heir, Lionel Verner. Tynn and others were standing in the hall, talking
in groups, as is the custom with dependents when something unusual and
exciting is going on. Lionel appeared full of emotion when he burst in
upon them.

"Is it true?" he demanded, speaking impulsively. "Is Rachel really
dead?"

"She is dead, sir."

"Drowned?"

"Yes, sir, drowned."

He stood like one confounded. He had heard the news in the village, but
this decided confirmation of it was as startling as if he now heard it
for the first time. A hasty word of feeling, and then he looked again at
Tynn.

"Was it the result of accident?"

Tynn shook his head.

"It's to be feared it was not, sir. There was a dreadful quarrel heard,
it seems, near to the pond, just before it happened. My master is
inquiring into it now, sir, in his study. Mr. Bitterworth and some more
are there."

Giving his hat to the butler, Lionel Verner opened the study door, and
entered. It was at that precise moment when John Massingbird had gone
out for Mrs. Roy; so that, as may be said, there was a lull in the
proceedings.

Mr. Verner looked glad when Lionel appeared. The ageing man, enfeebled
with sickness, had grown to lean on the strong young intellect. As much
as it was in Mr. Verner's nature to love anything, he loved Lionel. He
beckoned him to a chair beside himself.

"Yes, sir, in an instant," nodded Lionel. "Matthew," he whispered,
laying his hand kindly on the old man's shoulder as he passed, and
bending down to him with his sympathising eyes, his pleasant voice, "I
am grieved for this as if it had been my own sister. Believe me."

"I know it; I know you, Mr. Lionel," was the faint answer. "Don't unman
me, sir, afore 'em here; leave me to myself."

With a pressure of his hand on the shoulder ere he quitted it, Lionel
turned to Frederick Massingbird, asking of him particulars in an
undertone.

"I don't know them myself," replied Frederick, his accent a haughty one.
"There seems to be nothing but uncertainty and mystery. Mr. Verner ought
not to have inquired into it in this semi-public way. Very disagreeable
things have been said, I assure you. There was not the least necessity
for allowing such absurdities to go forth, as suspicions, to the public.
You have not been running from the Willow Pond at a strapping pace, I
suppose, to-night?".

"That I certainly have not," replied Lionel.

"Neither has John, I am sure," returned Frederick resentfully. "It is
not likely. And yet that boy of Mother Duff's--"

The words were interrupted. The door had opened, and John Massingbird
appeared, marshalling in Dinah Roy. Dinah looked fit to die, with her
ashy face and her trembling frame.

"Why, what is the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Verner.

The woman burst into tears.

"Oh, sir, I don't know nothing of it; I protest I don't," she uttered.
"I declare that I never set eyes on Rachel Frost this blessed night."

"But you were near the spot at the time?"

"Oh, bad luck to me, I was!" she answered, wringing her hands. "But I
know no more how she got into the water nor a child unborn."

"Where's the necessity for being put out about it, my good woman?" spoke
up Mr. Bitterworth. "If you know nothing, you can't tell it. But you
must state what you do know--why you were there, what startled you, and
such like. Perhaps--if she were to have a chair?" he suggested to Mr.
Verner in a whisper. "She looks too shaky to stand."

"Ay," acquiesced Mr. Verner. "Somebody bring forward a chair. Sit down,
Mrs. Roy."

Mrs. Roy obeyed. One of those harmless, well-meaning, timid women, who
seem not to possess ten ideas of their own, and are content to submit to
others, she had often been seen in a shaky state from very trifling
causes. But she had never been seen like this. The perspiration was
pouring off her pinched face, and her blue check apron was incessantly
raised to wipe it.

"What errand had you near the Willow Pond this evening?" asked Mr.
Verner.

"I didn't see anything," she gasped, "I don't know anything. As true as
I sit here, sir, I never saw Rachel Frost this blessed evening."

"I am not asking you about Rachel Frost. _Were_ you near the spot?"

"Yes. But--"

"Then you can say what errand you had there; what business took you to
it," continued Mr. Verner.

"It was no harm took me, sir. I went to get a dish o' tea with Martha
Broom. Many's the time she have asked me since Christmas; and my
husband, he was out with the Dawsons and all that bother; and Luke, he's
gone, and there was nothing to keep me at home. I changed my gownd and I
went."

"What time was that?"

"'Twas the middle o' the afternoon, sir. The clock had gone three."

"Did you stay tea there?"

"In course, sir, I did. Broom, he was out, and she was at home by
herself a-rinsing out some things. But she soon put 'em away, and we sat
down and had our teas together. We was a-talking about--"

"Never mind that," said Mr. Verner. "It was in coming home, I conclude,
that you were met by young Broom."

Mrs. Roy raised her apron again, and passed it over her face but not a
word spoke she in answer.

"What time did you leave Broom's cottage to return home?"

"I can't be sure, sir, what time it was. Broom's haven't got no clock;
they tells the time by the sun."

"Was it dark?"

"Oh, yes, it was dark, sir, except for the moon. That had been up a good
bit, for I hadn't hurried myself."

"And what did you see or hear, when you got near the Willow Pond?"

The question sent Mrs. Roy into fresh tears; into fresh tremor.

"I never saw nothing," she reiterated. "The last time I set eyes on
Rachel Frost was at church on Sunday."

"What is the matter with you?" cried Mr. Verner, with asperity. "Do you
mean to deny that anything had occurred to put you in a state of
agitation, when you were met by young Broom?"

Mrs. Roy only moaned.

"Did you hear people quarrelling?" he persisted.

"I heard people quarrelling," she sobbed. "I did. But I never saw, no
more than the dead, who it was."

"Whose voices were they?"

"How can I tell, sir? I wasn't near enough. There were two voices, a
man's and a woman's; but I couldn't catch a single word, and it did not
last long. I declare, if it were the last word I had to speak, that I
heard no more of the quarrel than that, and I wasn't no nearer to it."

She really did seem to speak the truth, in spite of her shrinking fear,
which was evident to all. Mr. Verner inquired, with incredulity equally
evident, whether that was sufficient to put her into the state of tremor
spoken of by young Broom.

Mrs. Roy hung her head.

"I'm timid at quarrels, 'specially if it's at night," she faintly
answered.

"And was it just the hearing of that quarrel that made you sink down on
your knees, and clasp hold of a tree?" continued Mr. Verner. Upon which
Mrs. Roy let fall her head on her hands, and sobbed piteously.

Robin Frost interrupted, sarcasm in his tone--"There's a tale going on,
outside, that you saw a ghost, and it was that as frighted you," he said
to her. "Perhaps, sir"--turning to Mr. Verner--"you'll ask her whose
ghost it was."

This appeared to put the finishing touch to Mrs. Roy's discomfiture.
Nothing could be made of her for a few minutes. Presently, her agitation
somewhat subsided; she lifted her head, and spoke as with a desperate
effort.

"It's true," she said. "I'll make a clean breast of it. I did see a
ghost, and it was that as upset me so. It wasn't the quarrelling
frighted me: I thought nothing of that."

"What do you mean by saying you saw a ghost?" sharply reproved Mr.
Verner.

"It was a ghost, sir," she answered, apparently picking up a little
courage, now the subject was fairly entered upon.

A pause ensued. Mr. Verner may have been at a loss what to say next.
When deliberately assured by any timorous spirit that they have "seen a
ghost," it is waste of time to enter an opposing argument.

"Where did you see the ghost?" he asked.

"I had stopped still, listening to the quarrelling, sir. But that soon
came to an end, for I heard no more, and I went on a few steps, and then
I stopped to listen again. Just as I turned my head towards the grove,
where the quarrelling had seemed to be, I saw something a few paces from
me that made my flesh creep. A tall, white thing it looked, whiter than
the moonlight. I knew it could be nothing but a ghost, and my knees sunk
down from under me, and I laid hold o' the trunk o' the tree."

"Perhaps it was a death's head and bones?" cried John Massingbird.

"Maybe, sir," she answered. "That, or something worse. It glided through
the trees with its great eyes staring at me; and I felt ready to die."

"Was it a man's or a woman's ghost?" asked Mr. Bitterworth, a broad
smile upon his face.

"Couldn't have been a woman's, sir; 'twas too tall," was the sobbing
answer. "A great tall thing it looked, like a white shadder. I wonder I
be alive!"

"So do I," irascibly cried Mr. Verner. "Which way was it going? Towards
the village, or in this direction?"

"Not in either of 'em, sir. It glided right off at a angle amid the
trees."

"And it was that--that folly, that put you into the state of tremor in
which Broom found you?" said Mr. Verner. "It was nothing else?"

"I declare, before Heaven, that it was what I saw as put me into the
fright young Broom found me in," she repeated earnestly.

"But if you were so silly as to be alarmed for the moment, why do you
continue to show alarm still?"

"Because my husband says he'll shake me," she whimpered, after a long
pause. "He never has no patience with ghosts."

"Serve you right," was the half-audible comment of Mr. Verner. "Is this
all you know of the affair?" he continued, after a pause.

"It's all, sir," she sobbed. "And enough too. There's only one thing as
I shall be for ever thankful for."

"What's that?" asked Mr. Verner.

"That my poor Luke was away afore this happened. He was fond of
hankering after Rachel, and folks might have been for laying it on his
shoulders; though, goodness knows, he'd not have hurt a hair of her
head."

"At any rate, he is out of it," observed John Massingbird.

"Ay," she replied, in a sort of self-soliloquy, as she turned to leave
the room, for Mr. Verner told her she was dismissed, "it'll be a corn o'
comfort amid my peck o' troubles. I have fretted myself incessant since
Luke left, a-thinking as I could never know comfort again; but perhaps
it's all for the best now, as he should ha' went."

She curtsied, and the door was closed upon her. Her evidence left an
unsatisfactory feeling behind it.

An impression had gone forth that Mrs. Roy could throw some light upon
the obscurity; and, as it turned out, she had thrown none. The greater
part of those present gave credence to what she said. All believed the
"ghost" to have been pure imagination; knowing the woman's proneness to
the marvellous, and her timid temperament. But, upon one or two there
remained a strong conviction that Mrs. Roy had not told the whole truth;
that she could have said a great deal more about the night's work, had
she chosen to do so.

No other testimony was forthcoming. The cries and shouts of young Broom,
when he saw the body in the water, had succeeded in arousing some men
who slept at the distant brick-kilns; and the tidings soon spread, and
crowds flocked up. These people were eager to pour into Mr. Verner's
room now, and state all _they_ knew, which was precisely the evidence
not required; but of further testimony to the facts there was none.

"More may come out prior to the inquest; there's no knowing," observed
Mr. Bitterworth, as the gentlemen stood in a group, before separating.
"It is a very dreadful thing, demanding the most searching
investigation. It is not likely she would throw herself in."

"A well-conducted girl like Rachel Frost throw herself wilfully into a
pond to be drowned!" indignantly repeated Mr. Verner. "She would be one
of the last to do it."

"And equally one of the last to be thrown in," said Dr. West. "Young
women are not thrown into ponds without some cause; and I should think
few ever gave less cause for maltreatment of any kind than she. It
appears most strange to me with whom she could have been quarrelling--if
indeed it was Rachel that was quarrelling."

"It is all strange together," cried Lionel Verner. "What took Rachel
that way at all, by night time?"

"What indeed!" echoed Mr. Bitterworth. "Unless--"

"Unless what?" asked Mr. Verner; for Mr. Bitterworth had brought his
words to a sudden standstill.

"Well, I was going to say, unless she had an appointment there. But that
does not appear probable for Rachel Frost."

"It is barely possible, let alone probable," was the retort of Mr.
Verner.

"But still, in a case like this, every circumstance must be looked at,
every trifle weighed," resumed Mr. Bitterworth. "Does Rachel's own
conduct appear to you to have been perfectly open? She has been
indulging, it would seem, in some secret grief latterly; has been
'strange,' as one or two have expressed it. Then, again, she stated to
her brother that she was going to stay at Duffs for a gossip, whereas
the woman says she had evidently no intention of gossiping, and barely
gave herself time to order the articles spoken of. Other witnesses
observed her leave Duff's, and walk with a hasty step direct to the
field road, and turn down it. All this does not sound quite clear to
me."

"There was one thing that did not sound clear to me," broke in Lionel
abruptly, "and that was Dinah Roy's evidence. The woman's half a fool;
otherwise I should think she was purposely deceiving us."

"A pity but she could see a real ghost!" cried John Massingbird, looking
inclined to laugh, "It might cure her for fancy ones. She's right in
one thing, however; poor Luke might have got this clapped on his
shoulders had he been here."

"Scarcely," dissented Dr. West. "Luke Roy is too inoffensive to harm any
one, least of all a woman, and Rachel; and that the whole parish knows."

"There's no need to discuss Luke's name in the business," said Mr.
Verner; "he is far enough away. Whoever the man may have been, it was
not Luke," he emphatically added. "Luke would have been the one to
succour Rachel, not to hurt her."

Not a soul present but felt that Mr. Verner spoke in strict accordance
with the facts, known and presumptive. They must look in another quarter
than Luke for Rachel's assailant.

Mr. Verner glanced at Mr. Bitterworth and Dr. West, then at the three
young men before him.

"We are amongst friends," he observed, addressing the latter. "I would
ask you, individually, whether it was one of you that the boy, Duff,
spoke of as being in the lane?"

They positively disclaimed it, each one for himself. Each one mentioned
that he had been elsewhere at the time, and where he had been.

"You see," said Mr. Verner, "the lane leads only to Verner's Pride."

"But by leaping a fence anywhere, or a gate, or breaking through a
hedge, it may lead all over the country," observed Frederick
Massingbird. "You forget that, sir."

"No, Frederick, I do not forget it. But unless a man had business at
Verner's Pride, what should he go into the lane for? On emerging from
the field on this side the Willow Pond, any one, not bound for Verner's
Pride, would take the common path to the right hand, open to all; only
in case of wanting to come here would he take the lane. You cannot
suppose for a moment that I suspect any one of you has had a hand in
this unhappy event; but it was right that I should be assured, from your
own lips, that you were not the person spoken of by young Duff."

"It may have been a stranger to the neighbourhood, sir. In that case he
would not know that the lane led only to Verner's Pride."

"True--so far. But what stranger would be likely to quarrel with
Rachel?"

"Egad, if you come to that, sir, a stranger's more likely to pick a
quarrel with her than one of us," rejoined John Massingbird.

"It was no stranger," said Mr. Verner, shaking his head. "We do not
_quarrel_ with strangers. Had any stranger accosted Rachel at night, in
that lonely spot, with rude words, she would naturally have called out
for help; which it is certain she did not do, or young Broom and Mrs.
Roy must have heard her. Rely upon it, that man in the lane is the one
we must look for."

"But where to look?" debated Frederick Massingbird.

"There it is! The inference would be that he was coming to Verner's
Pride; being on its direct way and nearly close upon it. But, the only
tall men (as the boy describes) at Verner's Pride, are you three and
Bennet. Bennet was at home, therefore he is exempt; and you were
scattered in different directions--Lionel at Mr. Bitterworth's, John at
the Royal Oak--I wonder you like to make yourself familiar with those
tap-rooms, John!--and Frederick coming in from Poynton's to his dinner."

"I don't think I had been in ten minutes when the alarm came," remarked
Frederick.

"Well, it is involved in mystery at present," cried Mr. Bitterworth,
shaking hands with them. "Let us hope that to-morrow will open more
light upon it. Are you on the wing too, doctor? Then we'll go out
together."




CHAPTER VII.

THE REVELATION AT THE INQUEST.


To say that Deerham was rudely disturbed from its equanimity; that petty
animosities, whether concerning Mr. Roy and the Dawsons or other
contending spirits, were lost sight of, hushed to rest in the absorbing
calamity which had overtaken Rachel; to say that occupations were
partially suspended, that there ensued a glorious interim of idleness,
for the female portion of it--of conferences in gutters and collectings
in houses; to say that Rachel was sincerely mourned, old Frost
sympathised with, and the supposed assailant vigorously sought after,
would be sufficient to indicate that public curiosity was excited to a
high pitch; but all this was as nothing compared to the excitement that
was to ensue upon the evidence given at the coroner's inquest.

In the absence of any certain data to go upon, Deerham had been content
to take uncertain data, and to come to its own conclusions. Deerham
assumed that Rachel, from some reasons which they could not fathom, had
taken the lonely road home that night, had met with somebody or other
with whom had ensued a quarrel and scuffle, and that, accidentally or by
intent, she had been pushed into the pond, the coward decamping.

"Villainy enough! even if 'twas but an accident!" cried wrathful
Deerham.

Villainy enough, beyond all doubt, had this been the extent. But,
Deerham had to learn that the villainy had had a beginning previous to
that.

The inquest had been summoned in due course. It sat two days after the
accident. No evidence, tending to further elucidate the matter, was
given, than had been elicited that first night before Mr. Verner; except
the medical evidence. Dr. West and a surgeon from a neighbouring town,
who had jointly made the post-mortem examination, testified that there
was a cause for Rachel Frost's unevenness of spirits, spoken to by her
father and by Mrs. Verner. She might possibly, they now thought, have
thrown herself into the pool; induced to it by self-condemnation.

It electrified Deerham. It electrified Mr. Verner. It worse than
electrified Matthew Frost and Robin. In the first impulse of the news,
Mr. Verner declared that it _could not be_. But the medical men, with
their impassive faces, calmly said that _it was_.

But, so far as the inquiry went, the medical testimony did not carry the
matter any further. For, if the evidence tended to induce a suspicion
that Rachel might have found life a burden, and so wished to end it, it
only rendered stronger the suspicion against another. This supplied the
very motive for that other's conduct which had been wanting, supposing
he had indeed got rid of her by violence. It gave the clue to much which
had before been dark. People could understand now why Rachel should
hasten to keep a stealthy appointment; why quarrelling should be heard;
in short, why poor Rachel should have been found in the pond. The jury
returned an open verdict--"Found drowned; but how she got into the
water, there is no precise evidence to show."

Robin Frost struggled out of the room as the crowd was dispersing. His
eye was blazing, his cheek burning. Could Robin have laid his hand at
that moment upon the right man, there would speedily have ensued another
coroner's inquest. The earth was not wide enough for the two to live on
it. Fortunately, Robin could not fix on any one, and say, Thou art the
man! The knowledge was hidden from him. And yet, the very man may have
been at the inquest, side by side with himself. Nay, he probably _was_.

Robin Frost cleared himself from the crowd. He gave vent to a groan of
despair; he lifted his strong arms in impotency. Then he turned and
sought Mr. Verner.

Mr. Verner was ill; could not be seen. Lionel came forward.

"Robin, I am truly sorry--truly grieved. We all are. But I know you will
not care to-day to hear me say it."

"Sir, I wanted to see Mr. Verner," replied Robin. "I want to know if
that inquest can be squashed." Don't laugh at him now, poor fellow. He
meant quashed.

"The inquest quashed!" repeated Lionel. "Of course it cannot be. I don't
know what you mean, Robin. It has been held, and it cannot be unheld."

"I should ha' said the verdict," explained Robin. "I'm beside myself
to-day, Mr. Lionel. Can't Mr. Verner get it squashed? He knows the
crowner."

"Neither Mr. Verner nor anybody else could do it, Robin. Why should you
wish it done?"

"Because it as good as sets forth a lie," vehemently answered Robin
Frost. "She never put herself into the water. Bad as things had turned
out with her, poor dear, she never did that. Mr. Lionel, I ask you, sir,
was she likely to do it?"

"I should have deemed it very unlikely," replied Lionel. "Until to-day,"
he added to his own thoughts.

"No, she never did! Was it the work of one to go and buy herself aprons,
and tape, and cotton for sewing, who was on her way to fling herself
into a pond, I'd ask the crowner?" he continued, his voice rising almost
to a shriek in his emotion. "Them aprons be a proof that _she_ didn't
take her own life. Why didn't they bring it in Wilful Murder, and have
the place scoured out to find him?"

"The verdict will make no difference to the finding him, Robin,"
returned Lionel Verner.

"I dun know that, sir. When a charge of wilful murder's out in a place,
again' some one of the folks in it, the rest be all on the edge to find
him; but 'Found drownded' is another thing. Have you any suspicion
again' anybody, sir?"

He put the question sharply and abruptly, and Lionel Verner looked full
in his face as he answered, "No, Robin."

"Well, good-afternoon, sir."

He turned away without another word. Lionel gazed after him with true
sympathy. "He will never recover this blow," was Lionel Verner's mental
comment.

But for this unfortunate occurrence, John Massingbird would have already
departed from Verner's Pride. The great bane of the two Massingbirds
was, that they had been brought up to be idle men. A sum of money had
become theirs when Frederick came of age--which sum you will call large
or small, as it may please you. It would be as a drop of water to the
millionaire; it would be as a countless fortune to one in the depths of
poverty: we estimate things by comparison. The sum was five thousand
pounds each--Mrs. Massingbird, by her second marriage with Mr. Verner,
having forfeited all right in it. With this sum the young Massingbirds
appeared to think that they could live as gentlemen, and need not seek
to add to it.

Thrown into the luxurious home of Verner's Pride--again we must speak by
comparison: Verner's Pride was luxurious compared to the moderate home
they had been reared in--John and Frederick Massingbird suffered that
worst complaint of all complaints, indolence, to overtake them and
become their master. John, careless, free, unsteady in many ways, set on
to spend his portion as fast as he could; Frederick, more cold, more
cautious, did not squander as his brother did, but he had managed to get
rid of a considerable amount of his own share in unfortunate
speculations. While losses do not affect our personal convenience they
are scarcely felt. And so it was with the Massingbirds. Mr. Verner was
an easy man in regard to money matters; he was also a man who was
particularly sensitive to the feelings of other people, and he had never
breathed a word to his wife about the inexpediency of her keeping her
sons at home in idleness. He feared his motives might be
misconstrued--that it might be thought he grudged the expense. He had
spoken once or twice of the desirability of his step-sons pursuing some
calling in life, and intimated that he should be ready to further their
views by pecuniary help; but the advice was not taken. He offered to
purchase a commission for one or both of them; he hinted that the bar
afforded a stepping-stone to fame. No; John and Frederick Massingbird
were conveniently deaf; they had grown addicted to field-sports, to a
life of leisure, and they did not feel inclined to quit it for one of
obligation or of labour. So they had stayed on at Verner's Pride in the
enjoyment of their comfortable quarters, of the well-spread table, of
their horses, their dogs. All these sources of expense were provided
without any cost or concern of theirs, their own private expenditure
alone coming out of their private purses. How it was with their clothes,
they and Mrs. Verner best knew; Mr. Verner did not. Whether these were
furnished at their own cost, or whether their mother allowed them to
draw for such on her, or, indeed, whether they were scoring up long
bills on account, Mr. Verner made it no concern of his to inquire.

John--who was naturally of a roving nature, and who, but for the
desirable home he was allowed to call his, would probably have been all
over the world before he was his present age, working in his shirt
sleeves for bread one day, exalted to some transient luck the next--had
latterly taken a fancy in his head to emigrate to Australia. Certain
friends of his had gone out there a year or two previously, and were
sending home flaming accounts of their success at the gold-fields. It
excited in John Massingbird a strong wish to join them. Possibly other
circumstances urged him to the step; for it was certain that his
finances were not in so desirable a state as they might be. With John
Massingbird to wish a thing was to do it; and almost before the plan was
spoken of, even in his own family, he was ready to start. Frederick was
in his confidence, Lionel partly so, and a hint to his mother was
sufficient to induce her to preserve reticence on the subject. John
Massingbird had his reasons for this. It was announced in the household
that Mr. Massingbird was departing on a visit to town, the only one who
was told the truth being Rachel Frost. Rachel was looked upon almost as
one of themselves. Frederick Massingbird had also confided it to
Sibylla West--but Frederick and Sibylla were on more confidential terms
than was suspected by the world. John had made a confident on his own
part, and that was of Luke Roy. Luke, despised by Rachel, whom he truly
loved, clearly seeing there was no hope whatever that she would ever
favour him, was eager to get away from Deerham--anywhere, so that he
might forget her. John Massingbird knew this; he liked Luke, and he
thought Luke might prove useful to him in the land to which he was
emigrating, so he proposed to him to join in the scheme. Luke warmly
embraced it. Old Roy, whom they were obliged to take into confidence,
was won over to it. He furnished Luke with the needful funds, believing
he should be repaid four-fold; for John Massingbird had contrived to
imbue him with the firm conviction that gold was to be picked up for the
stooping.

Only three days before the tragic event occurred to Rachel, Luke had
been despatched to London by John Massingbird to put things in a train
of preparation for the voyage. Luke said nothing abroad of his going,
and the village only knew he was away by missing him.

"What's gone of Luke?" many asked of his father.

"Oh, he's off to London on some spree; he can tell ye about it when he
gets back," was Roy's answer.

When he got back! John's departure was intended for the day following
that one when you saw him packing his clothes, but the untimely end of
Rachel had induced him to postpone it. Or, rather, the command of Mr.
Verner--a command which John could not conveniently disobey had he
wished. He had won over Mr. Verner to promise him a substantial sum, to
"set him up," as he phrased it, in Australia; and that sum was not yet
handed to him.




CHAPTER VIII.

ROBIN'S VOW.


The revelation at the inquest had affected Mr. Verner in no measured
degree, greatly increasing, for the time, his bodily ailments. He gave
orders to be denied to all callers; he could not bear the comments that
would be made. An angry, feverish desire to find out who had played the
traitor grew strong within him. Innocent, pretty, child-like Rachel! who
was it that had set himself, in his wickedness, deliberately to destroy
her? Mr. Verner now deemed it more than likely that she had been the
author of her own death. It was of course impossible to tell: but he
dwelt on that part of the tragedy less than on the other. The one injury
was uncertain; the other was a fact.

What rendered it all the more obscure was the absence of any previous
grounds of suspicion. Rachel had never been observed to be on terms of
intimacy with any one. Luke Roy had been anxious to court her, as
Verner's Pride knew; but Rachel had utterly repudiated the wish. Luke it
was not. And who else was there?

The suspicions of Mr. Verner veered, almost against his will, towards
those of his own household. Not to Lionel; he honestly believed Lionel
to be too high-principled: but towards his step-sons. He had no
particular cause to suspect either of them, unless the testimony of Mrs.
Duff's son about the tall gentleman could furnish it; and it may be said
that his suspicion strayed to them only from the total absence of any
other quarter to fix it upon. Of the two, he could rather fix upon John,
than Frederick. No scandal, touching Frederick, had ever reached his
ears: plenty of it touching John. In fact, Mr. Verner was rather glad to
help in shipping John off to some faraway place, for he considered him
no credit to Verner's Pride, or benefit to the neighbourhood. Venial
sins sat lightly on the conscience of John Massingbird.

But this was no venial sin, no case of passing scandal; and Mr. Verner
declared to that gentleman that if he found him guilty, he would discard
him from Verner's Pride without a shilling of help. John Massingbird
protested, in the strongest terms, that he was innocent as Mr. Verner
himself.

A trifling addition was destined to be brought to the suspicion already
directed by Mr. Verner towards Verner's Pride. On the night of the
inquest Mr. Verner had his dinner served in his study--the wing of a
fowl, of which he ate about a fourth part. Mrs. Tynn attended on him: he
liked her to do so when he was worse than usual. He was used to her, and
he would talk to her when he would not to others. He spoke about what
had happened, saying that he felt as if it would shorten his life. He
would give anything, he added, half in self-soliloquy, to have the
point cleared up of who it was young Duff had seen in the lane. Mrs.
Tynn answered this, lowering her voice.

"It was one of our young gentlemen, sir; there's, no doubt of it. Dolly
saw one of them come in."

"Dolly did!" echoed Mr. Verner.

Mrs. Tynn proceeded to explain. Dolly, the dairymaid at Verner's Pride,
was ill-conducted enough (as Mrs. Tynn would tell her, for the fact did
not give that ruling matron pleasure) to have a sweetheart. Worse still,
Dolly was in the habit of stealing out to meet him when he left work,
which was at eight o'clock. On the evening of the accident, Dolly,
abandoning her dairy, and braving the wrath of Mrs. Tynn, should she be
discovered, stole out to a sheltered spot in the rear of the house, the
usual meeting-place. Scarcely was she ensconced here when the swain
arrived; who, it may be remarked, _en passant_, filled the important
post of waggoner to Mr. Bitterworth. The spot was close to the small
green gate which led to the lane already spoken of; it led to that only;
and, while he and Dolly were talking and making love, after their own
rustic fashion, they saw Dan Duff come from the direction of the house,
and pass through the gate, whistling. A short while subsequently the
gate was heard to open again. Dolly looked out, and saw what she took to
be one of the gentlemen come in, _from_ the lane, walking very fast.
Dolly looked but casually, the moonlight was obscured there, and she did
not particularly notice _which_ of them it was; whether Mr. Lionel, or
either of Mrs. Verner's sons. But the impression received into her mind
was that it was one of the three; and Dolly could not be persuaded out
of that to this very day.

"Hush--sh--sh!" cried she to her sweetheart, "it's one o' the young
masters."

The quick steps passed on: but whether they turned into the yard, or
took the side path which would conduct round to the front entrance, or
bore right across, and so went out into the public road, Dolly did not
notice. Very shortly after this--time passes swiftly when people are
courting, of which fact the Italians have a proverb--Dan Duff came
bursting back again, calling, and crying, and telling the tidings of
Rachel Frost. This was the substance of what Mrs. Tynn told Mr. Verner.

"Dolly said nothing of this before!" he exclaimed.

"Not she, sir. She didn't dare confess that she'd been off all that
while from her dairy. She let drop a word, and I have got it out of her
piecemeal. I have threatened her, sir, that if ever she mentions it
again, I'll get her turned off."

"Why did you threaten her?" he hastily asked.

Mrs. Tynn dropped her voice. "I thought it might not be pleasant to have
it talked of, sir. She thinks I'm only afraid of the neglect of work
getting to the ears of Mrs. Verner."

This was the trifling addition. Not very much in itself, but it served
to bear out the doubts Mr. Verner already entertained. Was it John or
was it Frederick who had come in? Or was it--Lionel? There appeared to
be no more certainty that it was one than another. Mr. Verner had
minutely inquired into the proceedings of John and Frederick Massingbird
that night, and he had come to the conclusion that both could have been
in the lane at that particular hour. Frederick, previously to entering
the house for his dinner, after he had left the veterinary surgeon's,
Poynton; John, before he paid his visit to the Royal Oak. John appeared
to have called in at several places, and his account was not
particularly clear. Lionel, Mr. Verner had not thought it necessary to
question. He sent for him as soon as his dinner-tray was cleared away:
it was as well to be indisputably sure of him before fastening the
charge on either of the others.

"Sit down, Lionel," said Mr. Verner. "I want to talk to you. Had you
finished your dinner?"

"Quite, thank you. You look very ill to-night," Lionel added, as he drew
a